I was in the same boat with regards to TODOs, and I asked myself, given how well steeped we are in technology nowadays - surely this is a solved problem?
Turns out, it is. emacs' org-mode does pretty much the exact same thing WorkFlowy does, only it's tied into all the other niceties of emacs (and to admit that is saying something, I was a vim user). Plus, thanks to Dropbox, and MobileOrg for iPhones and Android, you can sync it to your mobile device quickly and easily.
Each to their own and all that, but I really, really like org-mode. The only reason I've slowed down on it a bit currently (using Astrid atm) is because the Android client is still relatively weak; as soon as that picks up a bit I'll be back on it full-time.
I keep trying new tools when they come out, but find myself always snapping back to Notational Velocity.
Workflowy reminds me of OmniOutliner, they share a very similar, hierarchical approach. Sadly they also share similar problems; a GUI that's too slow for my fingers and too complex for my little brain.
The GUI-complexity stems from the enforced hierarchy. Indenting stuff seems nice at first, and makes it look tidy. But after a while I'd find myself constantly futzing with the indentation in the futile attempt to structure what doesn't want to be structured.
And finally workflowy has the added drawback of living inside the browser - which is not nearly as close to my fingertips as a native app.
For me NV is ultimately the better approach. I can not praise it highly enough. Think: "full-text search for your brain". Try it out if you haven't yet.
I have used Notational Velocity, I like it, but I absolutely love Taskpaper. I have used almost every single task-manager you could possible think of, but taskpaper for mac is the only one I found to be no-nonsense and intuitive.
came close enough to Notational Velocity for my purposes. The key feature both share is giving me the ability to very quickly jump to a note by typing its name in. (With Zim you do this by typing cntrl-j.) I'm reluctant to try any note manager that doesn't have that feature.
Project Hedgehog (http://projecthedgehog.com) was designed to address many of these complaints. The UI is almost completely keyboard-driven and fast, and stripped down to bare bones. It's a desktop app that runs on OS X and Windows. It has fast search dialog accessible with one keystroke.
Like OmniOutliner/Workflowy, though, it also is hierarchy-oriented, which I think is most natural for ordered tasks. It has a slight learning curve and the UI is very utilitarian, but it has drastically reduced the amount of stuff I have to keep in my head as I'm working.
Wow NV is exactly what I was planning to build as a webapp to scratch my itch. Single text box for both search-as-you-type and for creating a new note. Registered boxuno.com for it.
But I never expected to be able to monetize it; it'd always be a little side project. Such apps are a dime a dozen. The problem with these apps is that simpler is better, but it's hard to differentiate your app from others (or even differentiate between free and premium versions) once it's too simple. I'll be pleasantly surprised if Workflowy can crack this nut.
I also use Notational Velocity on the Mac. I sync with the iPad/iPhone app SimpleNote. The great thing is that sync'ing is automatic in each app. Now all of my ideas and notes are always on whatever device I have at hand. I tried EverNote for a while but it got in the way for quickly updating existing notes, IMHO.
I think it comes down to how a given user works and thinks. Personally, I agree with you about hierarchy (my app doesn't have it and the issue comes up periodically) but I know some that need it. I'm often amazed at how such a simple problem (managing tasks) is solved in such different ways, each which suits one subset of the population!
Sometimes the tool is irrelevant. I have one friend who used a directory structure and text editor (pretty simple) to create an enormous cluster of tasks he'd never get to. Many thousands, like the Windows registry after a couple years of random software installs. His issue was just needing a mechanism to periodically clean it out, so a change in approach rather than a different tool.
Thanks for the Notational Velocity suggestion, it looks nice (link: http://notational.net/).
The extraneous Japanese writing on their page is unbelievably tacky though. I can't figure out what they were thinking. Was it supposed to look cool? It just says mundane things like "Download" or "How to use the program." Not a good impression...
I've been using Evernote for the past few weeks, and it's becoming a regular part of my day. I can read, write and search notes through both my computers and my phone (Nexus). Aside from some UI strangeness/ugliness I'm very happy with it.
I really like using Onenote with notebook saved on skydrive, I have been able to have the native app on my windows machines and the webapp when I am on the go. Also, there is a really good looking WP7 app now (though I have used it yet)
Are people really okay with both giving lots of details about what they are working on to an untrusted third party and committing to a tool that may uncontrollably change or disappear depending on what the maintainer decides to do with it?
I suppose I could use it for hobby projects. For work stuff, untrusted third parties having a free view at my workflow is just straight out, so there goes one big use for the system.
For everyday household stuff, my TODO list could be leaking medical and financial information, which is again a privacy problem. At the very least I would have to make sure both my account info and the contents of the tasks were carefully scrubbed of any identifying information. Seems like troublesome enough that I'd probably give the thing a pass in this situation too.
Our users are saying that they use it for work and pretty much everything. Also, we allow easy exporting of your whole list, so you're not going to lose all your data.
There's a simple solution to this problem -> realising that it is surprisingly easy for anyone with the interest to track you around town as you do your stuff and to plant bugs in your office. The info they get that way is much more useful and detailed than anything you ever write down on a TODO list.
If they're just reading your stuff as a passing curiosity because they accidentally can, then they are not a threat as they have no use for the information.
I guess I don't understand the analogy in the title. How is workflowy any more "distributed" than a to-do list? I mean, instead of carrying around my notebook of ideas and to-dos, I put it all on workflowy. It seems like I've traded one centralized system for another.
That's not to say that workflowy doesn't have advantages over a notebook, but the svn/git analogy is flawed in my opinion. Maybe if they'd compared other task management systems to cvs and workflowy to svn the version-control-system analogy would have fit better.
I like the look of it (and the intuitive way it functions) - but (even though my fear maybe irrational) I'm slightly worried about becoming dependent on a tool that might not be around in the future.
EDIT: actually, with an export function - there's not so much to lose.
Heh, this question gets posted every time something from my blog appears on HN.
It's a live-chat tool for websites that I'm testing for a friend and his startup. Honestly it's proving pretty useless with the kind of traffic I'm getting (high churn), but on websites with videos or long posts it's pretty awesome.
I meant like git in that it makes branching and such painless. It's not distributed at all as far as I can tell.
And yes I agree, if the checklist isn't tightly bound to the workspace it's meant for, everything breaks down. But being a founder of a web/mobile startup means pretty much everything I do happens on a computer.
I switched my homepage to Workflowy when I saw it first here on HN and it has been a great boost to my productivity since. Maybe nothing specific to Workflowy itself, but just the fact of having a todo list as homepage.
I made a simple HTML page with a large font that said "You're working on XYZ" and set it to be my home page. Embarrassingly, I was very productive that week.
Even though I didn't keep up with updating the HTML to represent what I was working on, I became much more aware of my actions and their relations to my responsibilities since then.
that is such a good idea. Just made my list as my homepage. Let's see how it works out for me. I use W7 Sticky Notes which comes very handy for boosting productivity too.
Workflowy looks interesting, but the part of the marketing that turns me off is that there is very little information available without signing in, instead we see a video. The video makes claims of being "the first" in a lot of things, but the demo shows workflowy off as a crippled version of mind-mapping software, which honestly makes me think they haven't done their homework.
Historically I'm not a guy who likes "fancy" note-taking or TODO-tracking tools. I tend to prefer things like vi or TextMate. That said, I played with WorkFlowy last night and I really liked it. I think it provides a very useful kind of tool experience. Scratchs a useful itch. I was surprised. The only thing that I don't like is I'm uncomfortable with it being a webapp hosted by some company. I'd much much much prefer it if I could run a native app version of WorkFlowy, with my data stored in a file on my own computer. And if it's stored in a file(s) that I control, then I could, say, use something like DropBox or git or rsynch or TimeMachine or TrueCrypt or whatever to make sure that data is shared or backed up or encrypted exactly how I want or need. Right now if the WF company goes away or I have no connectivity, I can't access my data. (I'm aware of their "copy-and-paste out" feature but that doesn't address this particular problem, and is hacky and will be prone to having out-of-date data stored in your backup cache. And it's too manual.) This is my only negative with it so far. Otherwise, I think the UI is great and I think it's really useful for certain cases. Possibly a killer app for those use cases. Turn this into a native app for Mac with all my data stored locally wherever I wish, with no connectivity requirements, and you can put me down for a purchase. Great work!
I also want to throw a shout out to Notational Velocity. First time I've heard of it was in this discussion thread. Just played with it now. Also like it. Nice use cases supported. I can see this really being useful. It's a different beast than WorkFlowy so I don't think they compete, they are complementary or orthogonal tools, at best. I could see using both. Couple advantages I see with NV are (1) native app, (2) open source, and (3) it stores your data locally where you control it and own it. NV does not have the cool collapsible hierarchical bullet point UI mechanism that WorkFlowy has, however, so again they don't really compete directly or scratch the same itch. The 100%-keyboard-drivability aspect is awesome and very useful. I wish I could control the font size, the default is uncomfortably small.
Anyway, glad I discovered this thread, and I'll be adding both of these tools to my toolbox going forward. Kudos to the folks behind both.
I would love to run something like this on my personal webserver.
Is there any free software solution that provides such a web solution? (I've played with various wikis for a while but it never was never 'addictive' enough.)
Very much looks like a nicely done but nevertheless small subset of emacs org-mode for the web.
I'll stay with org-mode:
- I'm in emacs all day anyway.
- Much more feature rich: priorites, dates, coloration, etc.
- Full editing (duh) capabilities. Cut&paste to shuffle things around. Key combos for everything. Fingers never leave the keyboard.
Since I maintain the file in git I check it in and out from anywhere on any system. Full version history as well.
I feel old-fashioned. I still use a piece of paper and a pen to jot down ideas. Not a fancy Moleskine book either, just one or two Sheets of A4 folded twice. I feel productive.
What do you think is the secret for Workflowy's success? Is it the novelty? The geekiness? The design? Stuff like that fascinates me, because I don't really need it. How am I to discover what people like if I wouldn't use it in the first place?
[+] [-] frio|15 years ago|reply
Turns out, it is. emacs' org-mode does pretty much the exact same thing WorkFlowy does, only it's tied into all the other niceties of emacs (and to admit that is saying something, I was a vim user). Plus, thanks to Dropbox, and MobileOrg for iPhones and Android, you can sync it to your mobile device quickly and easily.
Each to their own and all that, but I really, really like org-mode. The only reason I've slowed down on it a bit currently (using Astrid atm) is because the Android client is still relatively weak; as soon as that picks up a bit I'll be back on it full-time.
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitjak|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|15 years ago|reply
Workflowy reminds me of OmniOutliner, they share a very similar, hierarchical approach. Sadly they also share similar problems; a GUI that's too slow for my fingers and too complex for my little brain.
The GUI-complexity stems from the enforced hierarchy. Indenting stuff seems nice at first, and makes it look tidy. But after a while I'd find myself constantly futzing with the indentation in the futile attempt to structure what doesn't want to be structured.
And finally workflowy has the added drawback of living inside the browser - which is not nearly as close to my fingertips as a native app.
For me NV is ultimately the better approach. I can not praise it highly enough. Think: "full-text search for your brain". Try it out if you haven't yet.
[+] [-] pavs|15 years ago|reply
Mac only. if you haven't tried it yet, you should try it. You will love it. http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper
[+] [-] astrofinch|15 years ago|reply
http://zim-wiki.org/
came close enough to Notational Velocity for my purposes. The key feature both share is giving me the ability to very quickly jump to a note by typing its name in. (With Zim you do this by typing cntrl-j.) I'm reluctant to try any note manager that doesn't have that feature.
[+] [-] travism|15 years ago|reply
Like OmniOutliner/Workflowy, though, it also is hierarchy-oriented, which I think is most natural for ordered tasks. It has a slight learning curve and the UI is very utilitarian, but it has drastically reduced the amount of stuff I have to keep in my head as I'm working.
[+] [-] zhyder|15 years ago|reply
But I never expected to be able to monetize it; it'd always be a little side project. Such apps are a dime a dozen. The problem with these apps is that simpler is better, but it's hard to differentiate your app from others (or even differentiate between free and premium versions) once it's too simple. I'll be pleasantly surprised if Workflowy can crack this nut.
[+] [-] melling|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] richardw|15 years ago|reply
Sometimes the tool is irrelevant. I have one friend who used a directory structure and text editor (pretty simple) to create an enormous cluster of tasks he'd never get to. Many thousands, like the Windows registry after a couple years of random software installs. His issue was just needing a mechanism to periodically clean it out, so a change in approach rather than a different tool.
[+] [-] wahnfrieden|15 years ago|reply
The extraneous Japanese writing on their page is unbelievably tacky though. I can't figure out what they were thinking. Was it supposed to look cool? It just says mundane things like "Download" or "How to use the program." Not a good impression...
[+] [-] scotth|15 years ago|reply
I've been using Evernote for the past few weeks, and it's becoming a regular part of my day. I can read, write and search notes through both my computers and my phone (Nexus). Aside from some UI strangeness/ugliness I'm very happy with it.
[+] [-] awa|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abalashov|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsaarelm|15 years ago|reply
I suppose I could use it for hobby projects. For work stuff, untrusted third parties having a free view at my workflow is just straight out, so there goes one big use for the system.
For everyday household stuff, my TODO list could be leaking medical and financial information, which is again a privacy problem. At the very least I would have to make sure both my account info and the contents of the tasks were carefully scrubbed of any identifying information. Seems like troublesome enough that I'd probably give the thing a pass in this situation too.
[+] [-] jessep|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|15 years ago|reply
If they're just reading your stuff as a passing curiosity because they accidentally can, then they are not a threat as they have no use for the information.
[+] [-] quanticle|15 years ago|reply
That's not to say that workflowy doesn't have advantages over a notebook, but the svn/git analogy is flawed in my opinion. Maybe if they'd compared other task management systems to cvs and workflowy to svn the version-control-system analogy would have fit better.
EDIT: Grammar.
[+] [-] chrisgoodrich|15 years ago|reply
I love that I can keep all of this in one place without worrying too much about formatting.
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
EDIT: actually, with an export function - there's not so much to lose.
[+] [-] wgj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|15 years ago|reply
It's a live-chat tool for websites that I'm testing for a friend and his startup. Honestly it's proving pretty useless with the kind of traffic I'm getting (high churn), but on websites with videos or long posts it's pretty awesome.
[+] [-] burgerbrain|15 years ago|reply
I used BasKet for a while and it's pretty good. Ultimately though using TODO lists for non-computer tasks on a computer always breaks down for me.
Also, this doesn't seem particularly distributed. How is this like git? There are better ways of saying "it's neat and new".
[+] [-] Swizec|15 years ago|reply
And yes I agree, if the checklist isn't tightly bound to the workspace it's meant for, everything breaks down. But being a founder of a web/mobile startup means pretty much everything I do happens on a computer.
[+] [-] bigbang|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evlapix|15 years ago|reply
Even though I didn't keep up with updating the HTML to represent what I was working on, I became much more aware of my actions and their relations to my responsibilities since then.
I found it to be a valuable lesson.
[+] [-] oscardelben|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandipagr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d0m|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fluidcruft|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icco|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
I also want to throw a shout out to Notational Velocity. First time I've heard of it was in this discussion thread. Just played with it now. Also like it. Nice use cases supported. I can see this really being useful. It's a different beast than WorkFlowy so I don't think they compete, they are complementary or orthogonal tools, at best. I could see using both. Couple advantages I see with NV are (1) native app, (2) open source, and (3) it stores your data locally where you control it and own it. NV does not have the cool collapsible hierarchical bullet point UI mechanism that WorkFlowy has, however, so again they don't really compete directly or scratch the same itch. The 100%-keyboard-drivability aspect is awesome and very useful. I wish I could control the font size, the default is uncomfortably small.
Anyway, glad I discovered this thread, and I'll be adding both of these tools to my toolbox going forward. Kudos to the folks behind both.
[+] [-] peregrine|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quanticle|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wnoise|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnufs|15 years ago|reply
Is there any free software solution that provides such a web solution? (I've played with various wikis for a while but it never was never 'addictive' enough.)
[+] [-] chorsley|15 years ago|reply
http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
Very simple (single HTML file, web server not required), local, lightweight, can sync with Dropbox easily.
For teams, we're heavily using the Open Source version of Etherpad. Not a wiki, but a great collaborative text editor.
[+] [-] xyzzyb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] boskone|15 years ago|reply
I'll stay with org-mode: - I'm in emacs all day anyway. - Much more feature rich: priorites, dates, coloration, etc. - Full editing (duh) capabilities. Cut&paste to shuffle things around. Key combos for everything. Fingers never leave the keyboard.
Since I maintain the file in git I check it in and out from anywhere on any system. Full version history as well.
Still Workflowy is nicely done for what it is.
[+] [-] scrrr|15 years ago|reply
What do you think is the secret for Workflowy's success? Is it the novelty? The geekiness? The design? Stuff like that fascinates me, because I don't really need it. How am I to discover what people like if I wouldn't use it in the first place?
[+] [-] paradox95|15 years ago|reply