Workflowy - Updates? News?

Posted by jaslar
Jan 7, 2015 at 01:15 AM

I like the tool, too, and find myself spending more time in it for many of the reasons you say: easy to use, easy to fly around, easy to add and rearrange things, etc. I bought the annual subscription, and will no doubt renew.

I spent much of today doing research for a “chapter” I’m writing, though (an essay for an American publishing reference work, actually), and saw some of the limitations. I had to look at a lot of pdf journal articles. Cutting and pasting citations and quotes was a little clunky and required a lot of cleanup. So it probably isn’t the best tool for that. ConnectedText is probably better (based on what I read here - I haven’t really used it). While I like Worfklowy’s speed and cleanliness, it really didn’t seem to be optimized for that use. Dr. Andus’s workflow probably would have worked better, but not for a single project, probably. Too much ramp-up time!

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the writing to start plugging the quotes into my outline - and that might be a little clunky, too. I suspect I’ll wind up with an editor (WriteDown, maybe, just to put it through its paces) in one window, and Workflowy in the other, side by side. Both of these are Chrome apps, which is interesting, too (because I’m bouncing around various devices, mainly). But somehow I can’t see using Workflowy for the drafting and final edit. It doesn’t give me the word count, I can’t easily consult citations AND write. And not only do I not have two big monitors side by side, I usually use a laptop or tablet screen.

I’ve noticed that almost everybody on this forum winds up stringing together five to ten apps to accommodate their workflow. That’s probably just the way it goes. We all have our own wrinkles and needs. Speaking for myself, I can’t imagine how I could balance my fondness for minimal user interfaces with a longing for a one-stop shop for research, pattern-recognition and writing.

Nonetheless, Workflowy seems to have found its way into my core tool chest.