New unofficial workflowy app

Posted by frank.dg
Oct 23, 2016 at 02:15 PM

>I am not sure it’s to Workflowy’s advantage to have its official blog
>written primarily by someone whose objective appears to be to point out
>shortcomings in the software ware, and then present work-arounds. I’d
>rather hear from people who actually use the product without having to
>go through workaround hoops. Some of us just want to use Workflowy for
>what it can do, and have neither the time nor the inclination to try out
>various hacks.
> >Daly

Hey Daly, Frank here. Just came across this discussion now… and I hopped onto the WorkFlowy blog to take a quick look see. Of the last 10 posts that I’ve written there (as of today), only 2 of them deal exclusively with “hacks”. One about a bookmarklet to automate the creation of a tag index… and the other to track changes in WorkFlowy (à la MS Word). I’m not sure there are any productivity tools out there at the moment which can do either of the two… so, in that sense, a lot of the hacks I do write about are not features that one would ordinarily see anywhere… or which one would even want to be baked into WorkFlowy itself.

I’ve posted weekly for exactly a year now. Some back-breaking hard work… and I must say that the bulk of it (8 out of the last 10 posts) is stuff that would be applicable to any WorkFlowy user, without having to rely on hacks. The last post I created… I put over 20 hours into it. The concept of QR codes can actually apply to any URL/ productivity app that uses URL’s (i.e. Evernote shared notes, etc.). There are also 2 interviews in the last 10 posts with WorkFlowy users who are using WorkFlowy to run their businesses.

What I think is happening is that some of the memorable posts - such as the HandyFlowy post… and hacks to include inline images, etc… those posts get quite a bit of attention… but for some reason, a few people have made similar comments about myself primarily posting about hacks… while in reality it’s emphatically quite the opposite.

I would invite you to take a look at a couple of the most recent posts (within the last 10) which are core WorkFlowy through and through:

1. The WorkFlowy keyboard shortcut challenge: https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/10/06/keyboard-shortcut-challenge/

I’m really quite proud of this one. It gives people the chance to practice WorkFlowy’s keyboard shortcuts with some fun dynamics. That post set me back about 15 hours to complete.

2. Kanban scheduling in WorkFlowy
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/09/15/daily-schedule/

This is productivity 101.

3. “Ghost Bullets” and Completed Items Bring Focus to Writers and Translators
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/09/01/writers-and-translators/

This post is WorkFlowy to its core with no hacks. Just a streamlining of one’s writing WorkFlowy.

4. 4 Pretty Useful Things You Can do With Shared WorkFlowy Lists
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/08/24/shared-list-use-cases/

Three quarters of this post is dedicated to things one can to with shared WorkFlowy lists without any “hacks”. The last quarter expands on an (optional) Stylish hack.

Anywho… you’re talking to someone who finds incredible worth in the stripped-down WorkFlowy that we get right out of the box… and most of the posts I write come out with some pretty darn useful tips and tricks for just that. I’ve written a book full of WorkFlowy-centric stuff… and the posts have been quite prolific. In the first couple of month I was doing 2 posts a week… and due to time constraints (I do this voluntarily), I knocked it down to one post a week.

You’ll also glean a lot of useful information in the comments section of each post from the WorkFlowy community itself… and, in fact, many of the hacks have been the creation of the WorkFlowy community itself… tools that spring from ordinary users like myself who have a need and find a way to make it a reality… many of whom would be the first to say that they wouldn’t want these hacks to become actual native WorkFlowy features.

In many posts I have invited people to write me about their ideas and suggest content for future posts. You’re more than welcome to hit me up at:

Cheers!

Frank