Season 19, Episode 7 (#447)
On this episode of For Mac Eyes Only: Mike, Eric, and Darren share some of their favorite ways of getting the most from your Mac with tips on Finder navigation, Reminders, better Mail organization, working with multiple displays, PDFs in Notes, file templates in the Finder, plus little bonus tips sprinkled throughout! Darren closes the episode with this week’s Essential App pick: Pearcleaner!
LINKS to KNOW
> Image Splitter
> Actions (Mac App Store link)
> Toolbox Pro for iOS (App Store link)
> Data Jar
> AppCleaner
> Darren’s Essential App: Pearcleaner
CONTACT US
> Meet TeamFMEO
> Contact Us
> FMEOTV on YouTube
Play Now
Running Time: 1:38:05
I listened with interest to Eric’s convoluted description of how he used a combination of Shortcuts, Numbers, Reminders and a number of third party add ons to log the use of medications. STOP! Are you crazy!
There is already an IOS app that does all that. It’s free and it’s already on your iPhone just begging to be used.
Go to the Health app and select Browse->Medications
You can add your meds including dosage, plus the frequency and time to take them. You’ll get notifications when they are due and will log when you took them and show a pretty timeline graphic with your history. You can add colour coded visual cues showing whether the medication is a tablet, cream or eyedrop etc. You can archive old meds and restore them if you start using them again. And you can also share the data with others. All the data is encrypted and stored on iCloud.
I’ve been using the app for a couple of years now. At one time I was on about six meds of different types, timings and frequency. Couldn’t have managed without it.
Eric: please take a look. Maybe it could be your next App of the week.
Love the show
Regards
Michael
Hey Michael,
I just forwarded your comment to Eric and while I’m not going to speak for him, I believe the issue was that he was tracking not just his own medications, but those of other family members. I’m not sure the Health app will do that. Maybe it will! I’ve never used it for tracking meds so I don’t know, but helping to stay on top of other family members and their medications would be a pretty awesome feature.
I also think he may have created his “house of shortcuts” before the Health app was a thing. Although, I’m not sure because Apple’s Health app has been around quite a long time now.
Definitely something to bring up on the show! Thanks!
Mike
Thanks Michael,
Hahahaha I am crazy, and convoluted as well. I did know about Apple’s Health app and have used it for years to track my own medications. Mike was right, this was a little different situation. For one, (and I didn’t want to get into this on the show) it’s for tracking a family member’s meds due to their illness. There are a number of things they have to take and I didn’t want to use a medication tracker for this for a few reasons. One, because I wanted to keep track of what was taken and when in a spreadsheet that we could both access and update. With a shortcut we can easily back date when something was taken in case we forget to log it at the time. Also, in the spreadsheet I have a column dedicated to notes that we use to write what’s going on at the time. That actually gets used more than I thought it would.
Another reason: med trackers do a good job of telling you what to take and when, but in the case of Apple’s if you don’t take it at the time it says, it will not automatically adjust the time for the next dose. Of course you can take the med whenever and log it whenever, but the schedule is set up a head of time and it isn’t very flexible. Now there are other pill trackers that will adjust a future time based on when you actually took the med, but it’s still not as handy.
A third reason is that they take certain meds on an as-needed basis. These are meds that aren’t taken on a schedule, but we still want to track anyway. Not only the time it was taken, but how much and when they can take another dose. I know you can share health data with someone else, but I don’t know if you can share health notifications in the way you can share a reminders list. I see the same reminders they do. So there’s always two people keeping an eye on things.
Could I have done this using Apple’s Health app or a third party app like Pill Reminder? Possibly, but not the way we wanted it. Finally, both Shortcuts and Numbers are on iOS and macOS both. The Health app is only on iOS. I wanted this on the Mac as well. That’s the beauty of Shortcuts on the Mac and iOS. When you need something more custom, you can do it.
Thanks for the tip though. You are right, the Health app is great. I use it for just about everything. Tracking sleep, exercise, meds etc.
Eric