Workflowy Use

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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 12, 2014 at 05:45 PM

(This post also appeared under Workflowy Notes, but I started a new thread because it goes beyond that topic name.)

Knowing that Workflowy notes can be of any size is a liberating thought.

Ironically, it’s enable me to start using Workflowy for short notes. Go figure!

I have the confidence of knowing that a short note, if it begins morphing, isn’t going to be a problem. Who hasn’t had the problem of figuring 500 words is more than eough and finding out it isn’t. Oops.

I needed a digital equivalent of my Leuchtturm (everything a Moleskine has plus page numbers, greater durability, consistently better paper for fountain pens, no made up-in- marketing provenance + is less expensive) for throwing miscellaneous stuff. Evernote didn’t feel right for that because of limitations. Workflowy now gets all that miscellaneous, on the spur of the moment stuff under the technical heading of “Catch As Catch Can.” If an item is a few words and a url, it all goes into a new Workflowy item. If in doing that, or more info comes, I open a note, or add a point below. It is not an automatic process, but it gives me exactly what I want, in a way that is accessible.

I increasingly get ideas for writing - these may come as a few words or a few paragraphs. No long do I wonder, is this for Evernote, or MyInfo, or OneNote (well I’ve never really wondered that), or whatever. Goes into Workflowy - open on my browser, and as a Chrome App, lives in the same two places on my table.

Now sometimes, ideas when attended to quickly become more than an idea note or a couple of grafs badly in need of an edit. They just keep on going…and knowing this and that Workflowy has notes without limits frees me up - no anxiety.

I can work with such a topic to infinity - in one note, or more outline items with their notes, etc. And Workflowy gives me the bare bones milieu within which to write without requiring a separate bare bones writing environment.

Workflowy, among other things, is an on-the-fly program, an in-box in more ways than one.

Yesterday a beautiful picture of a uniformed combat vet in kilt (we do that in Canada) was outside his place saluting participants in a run/race that went by his place. Then something happened in one of those awesome possum moments which make life rich: the runners stopped to go over and thank him for his service.

So I, first time in years, riffed a poem off of that in my Metis (half breed in the US) context, and shared the poem and the photo onto my Facebook timeline.

I copied and pasted it into a Workflowy note. Unfortunately Workflowy didn’t take the photo - there are times that it’s helpful to do that. If a preliminary sort materials especially are going into Workflowy perhaps it needs this capability. In this case I also shared the item into Pocket (which is now replacing a lot of clipping to Evernote for me).

It’d be helpful if I could share items into Workflowy by a key stroke.

I don’t want Workflowy to become less elegant than it is. But for those of us who remember back to the 90s and living in outlines, Workflowy seems to be the best option there is - and it is a good option indeed.

Daly

Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 15, 2016 at 12:17 AM

WorkFlowy users might appreciate this: some Chrome extensions that extend WorkFlowy’s functionality (from Rawbytz)

WorkFindy - allows you to search the entire WorkFlowy file from any level of the hierarchy you’re zoomed into, as opposed to the default WorkFlowy search that only finds things at and below the hierarchy level you are on:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workfindy/hbambmdimfhkndanjdhfopdodgkfclhb

Clip to WorkFlowy - hit the extension icon when you are on a web page that you want to save to WorkFlowy (it copies the page title and URL), then navigate to a WorkFlowy bullet, and hit CTRL+V to paste:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clip-to-workflowy/cfifjihfoegnccifkcdomdookdckhaah

Rawbytz also got a few more in the Chrome Web Store (and some other goodies on his/her blog: https://rawbytz.wordpress.com/), but these two are my favourites.

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 9, 2017 at 11:55 AM

Rawbytz posted an updated version of his “Clip to WorkFlowy” Chrome extension in the Chrome Web Store:

https://rawbytz.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/clip-to-workflowy-public-beta/

Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 24, 2019 at 09:43 PM

“Clip To WorkFlowy” updated to v2.0

https://rawbytz.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/clip-to-workflowy-v2-0/

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