Are you losing your ideas like REM lost their religion? Not me. I am obsessed with Workflowy. This blog will show you how to organize workflowy notes so you can keep your ideas. You’re not the only one wondering how to use workflowy. There are many ways. Here is how I use workflowy as a quick capture system, and keep my old ideas safe in an archive.
Workflowy is a project management tool but I use it mostly for quick-capture of ideas. Working with adhd is a dance of it’s own accord, but after looking for ways to organize my thoughts for many months, I’ve settled on Workflowy and Notion. I use workflowy to organize the thoughts that come my way without a lot of friction. I use Notion to track things I have out in the world.
Productivity Habits in Workflowy
Irregular Maintenance. I’m a discovery writer. Or at least, that’s what you would call it if we were in a book writing club together. Discovery Writing means as the author, I set up the scene for the day, insert my characters, and see what happens.
As opposed to outlining the whole thing.
Workflowy is my quick capture system for taking notes and noting ideas. It’s how I go from couching it with my partner after salmon night to writing down another significant Seinfield saying.
I swear someday I will finally write that blog about the brilliance of Larry David & the other friends aka Seinfeld. With Workflowy, I can capture the quote and then **poof** —>> straight back to the couch.
One of my main productivity habits in Workflowy is doing a clean out. I have a bullet point called:
- Current 〰️ 〰️〰️ // 〰️ 〰️〰️
… That sits right up at the top, I put every thought I have here first. It’s the fastest way for me to get from couch idea to written down idea. I used to use Pages, (I’m a Mac), then I used docs.new … Both of which are pretty fast, but then I have to remember to go back and find the ideas. Which … Is boring.
I clean up Workflowy Monthly, probably.
I’m not a lover of doing things daily. I might get to something monthly, but tbh, I’m a fan of the 6-week interval. There are 8-ish per year. I can do some things 8 times per year. There’s space on my proverbial calendar for 8 times per year.
How I Gather My Thoughts in Workflowy
The first thing I do after I take a note in Workflowy, under the Current 〰️ 〰️〰️ // 〰️ 〰️〰️ bullet, is walk away.
That’s the beauty of Workflowy.
I captured it the moment I wrote it down.
It cost $48/year, by the way. For the ultimate list. Workflowy is an infinitely expandable and collapsible bullet point list.
My first note on Current is a Note called “Scarcity” with bullet points for Trader Joes / Costos and another bullet point ” Low SKU Count”. There’s a link to an article about how Trader Joes keeps you coming back by having seasonal items and trying products but only keeping what people like the best.
This bullet belongs under Psychological Triggers. Which is something I plan to teach on later.
The next bullet is “Trim the Hedges” which is copy I’m paraphrasing from Jonah Berger in Magic Words.
For miss, this belongs under the “Writing” Bullet.
How to move a bullet in Workflowy:
- Hover next to any bullet
- 3 dots will appear
- Click the 3 dots and a menu will appear
These are the options that appear when I click my bullet point for blog writing workflow. I wrote this bullet point recently as I was writing a blog. Today as I am cleaning up my workflowy, I will move this bullet to “Writing” — one of my main categories.
How to Organize Ideas in Workflowy
My workspace in Workflowy IS organized. But that happens AFTER the idea comes to me, not before. I choose the BIG IDEAS as they show themselves, not before.
Create Main Categories
As of Q4, 2023– I have 6 Main categories in my Workflowy:
- Current
- On Deck
- Projects
- Admin
- Brain Backpack
- Life
- Z Archive
At this exact moment, I have Psychological Triggers on the home page as a main category, but during this clean up date, that will go back under Projects— which includes “Writing” — my main she-bang.
I can’t spend a month organizing my second brain. I will not use that.
My interest is in the possibility of what I could make with the available inputs and interests.
Today I’m organizing Workflowy. I don’t do that necessarily on a specific day, but I do get it done when the energy is right. Like, for example … I’m drinking red wine tonight. I recently picked up a full-time gig and am trying something new this September which is to have a SIDE HUSTLE. Woah.
I’ve been getting some mirrors involved and organizing my quick notes into categories that make sense. Mirrors are one of the super rad features that makes Worflowy more than what it seems at first — an infinitely expandable and collapsible (that’s my favorite part) bullet point list.
Get Creative with Visuals
How to Organize Workflowy aesthetically
I love using a string of emojis to describe something. Workflowy is not the most aesthetic app of them all. You CAN upload images to workflowy. It’s just now how I use the productivity program because to me, setting up a visually pleasing space is not the only answer. I like workflowy for capturing ideas quickly, it’s not really where I hang out when I’m getting all aesthetic.
That’s about as far as I go with the creativity outside of words. I’m a words girl. I pay people to tell me what art to make. When I see a blank paper, I write on it. I don’t draw on it. I miiiiiight make it into a paper airplane. Depends on the crowd.
But I also want the Emojis on the END of my subjects, I do not want my emojis at the beginning.
The visual reinforces the words, not the other way around.
I’m a writer.
I really focus on the word. I’m not saying I’m the best writer there ever was, I’m just saying … That at a beautiful highway vista, I’m the girl that’s reading the sign.
I do most of my proper organizing and tracking in Notion
Interlinking Databases ?!!? I could seriously get off to that.
(It’s a joke. I can’t. But I can see that you’re saucy.)
How to organize Workflowy with Emojis
I tend to keep the emojis to the right side of the words, not first. For me, I’m looking for a Left justification start to my notes, like I’m reading a book.
It’s easier to keep track if everything on the left is started in an even line.
I use emojis after the words to reinforce the words and to create a bit of a visual queue I can quickly locate when I have Workflowy set to just the main bullet points.
Using Main Bullets to Organize Workflowy
When I use the handy-dandy feature called “collapse all” in Workflowy, There are between 5 and 7 dots.
One of my favorite college classes was small group communication. There’s a specific number that is a small group —>> it is between 3 and 7.
A group of 1 or 2 or 8 behaves differently than a small group. Let’s keep your top-level bullets to around 3-7.
I don’t mean to brag, but I just organized my Workflowy while optimizing the image size of all my screenshots with ImageOptim. I saved 82 MB while I moved some dot around. And now I have space for MORE SCREENSHOTS! Mwuahahahaha …
See ya.
