Spear phishing is when you get a researched, prepared, and targeted email specifically crafted to fool you, the addressee. This is not a Nigerian prince type email; this is a focused attack by an artist. Receiving one is a bad sign. It means a bad person has taken significant time out of multiple days to ruin yours. They will typically impersonate someone important and either scare or entice you into clicking on a malicious link or attachment.

On September 6th, 2022, I thought I was under just this type of digital attack.

I received an unsolicited email from Tim Stringer, founder of LearnOmniFocus.com. He offered me the opportunity to be a guest in his Workflow series. He referenced and complimented my blog and YouTube channel and said he thought I would have some valuable insights to share with his members.

I was doomed; someone was coming for me, hard. They knew just the right buttons to push, and it was only a matter of time until they got me…

Turns out I was paranoid, and the incredibly kind and gracious Tim (not an imposter) had genuinely reached out. We talked, and on November 11th, I was a Workflow guest on Learn OmniFocus! You can check out the recording below.

Video

Show Notes

If you saw something in the video and want to learn more, I linked to a bunch of the stuff below:

• My Perspective on Frogs
• Custom Pomodoro Timer via Shortcuts
• My Drafts Inbox
• GTD Brain Dump with Drafts
• Clear to Neutral

Learn More About Phishing

I think this episode of Reply All does a great job laying out the situation if you want to know why I am so paranoid about phishing attacks.

Closure

I had a blast planning for and recording this appearance! It scratched an itch that I have been missing since I left teaching and really sparked an interest in doing more of these types of appearances. Thank you to Tim for the opportunity!

I got a lot of help from LearnOmniFocus when I first switched to using OmniFocus as my task manager. In the time since I was an active user, Tim has expanded and is offering a ton of value to members beyond the ins and outs of OmniFocus. If you want help with your productivity journey (and use OmniFocus), I encourage you to sign to join his community.

If you sign up through the button below, I get a commission at no cost to you. You can also sign up here, with no strings attached.