Frank And His WorkFlowy Book

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October 20, 2015

WorkFlowy Book Cover

Frank, from productivitymashup.com, has written a 254 page book about WorkFlowy! How cool is that? The book, “Do Way, Way More in WorkFlowy“, is entertaining and crammed full of WorkFlowy tidbits. He describes using it with different productivity systems, extending it with external tools and a lot of stuff in between. As one of the creators of WorkFlowy, I found the book interesting, so you should be able to learn from it even if you’re an advanced user. Check it out.

After looking the book over I thought, “Wow, Frank is a prolific, entertaining writer and he seems to really enjoy WorkFlowy. Maybe I should see if he wants to write on the blog.” We talked, and lo and behold, Frank starts blogging in a few days. He’ll include some content from the book as well as original stuff. We shall see where it leads, hopefully up and to the right 🙂

Anyway, welcome Frank! Thanks for investing in WorkFlowy!

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Jørgen Sommer
Jørgen Sommer
6 years ago

Hello Frank.
I am using WorkFlowy about 5 weeks now and am interested in your WorkFlowy-book. Is it possible to buy and what is the price. I live in Denmark and will send the exact adress if I can buy.
Best regards
Jørgen

frank.dg
frank.dg
6 years ago
Reply to  Jørgen Sommer
Eizu
7 years ago

Hi Frank,

You have a book, wow! I’ll be reading your free book sample for now~

I was wondering, do you use both evernote and workflowy?
If yes, what are their roles to your productivity?

I’m planning to use Evernote for my upcoming 2 businesses, and I’m just testing the waters for my workflow system.

Btw, I like your Kanban Calendar: Evernote Series! Thank you for that

frank.dg
frank.dg
7 years ago
Reply to  Eizu

Hi Eizu,

I am/ was a raving Evernote fan. There are some distinctly different use cases for both WorkFlowy and Evernote… but I have come to use WorkFlowy as my go-to for absolutely ALL of my doing within the last year.

That is not to say that Evernote is amazing. WorkFlowy just outclasses it when it comes to writing, organizing, planning, researching, etc. Having said that, Evernote does a bang-up job of storing, searching for and visualizing documents such as PDFs, they have fantastic OCR technology which searches for words within images… and they do a great job at web clippings. So Evernote (and Dropbox) is mostly for storing stuff. WorkFlowy is where it all happens 🙂

Yep, I put a crazy amount of work into the Evernote Kanban series. Glad you like it.

wg
wg
7 years ago

Perfect, Frank! Thank you. Workflowy is one of the coolest things around…. the genius is in its simplicity. Now, you’ve showered it with pixie dust and it does magic!

Jon
Jon
7 years ago

Great ebook Frank! I’ll use with my private LinkedIn Writing and CV Writing Clients in London. Are you based in the UK?

frank.dg
frank.dg
7 years ago
Reply to  Jon

Nope… Tropical Northeast of Brazil. Great RWC by the way 🙂

askryukovskiy
8 years ago

Great book! Nevertheless, there are some rare cases to be additionaly explained. For instance, in Win the hotkeys ctrl+shift+0 do not work, if there is a language setting for changing the language is set to ctrl+shift instead of standard shift+alt.

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  askryukovskiy

It seems to work for some while not for others, depending on browser, OS, versions, etc. Keep in mind that there may be some teething problems, since the Ctrl+Shift+9/0 used to be Ctrl+9/0. Apparently it was not documented anywhere and was still an experimental shortcut. I’ll be thankful for as long as it sticks around… However, it does not currently work for me either. 9 works for me but not its 0 counterpart.

frank.dg
frank.dg
7 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

Now Alt+Shift+9/0 for Windows… and Ctrl+Shift+9/0 for Mac.

uweholst
uweholst
8 years ago

Hi, I’m completely unexperienced with HTML/CSS. Playing with the tag css from the book. Any idea how I can colorize the background of the complete line where the tag is and not the tag himself only?

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  uweholst

Your best bet is with a Chrome extension called “Painter for WorkFlowy”… And then set it to highlighter mode. I haven’t figured out how to do the same in Stylish yet, if at all possible.

Dennis
Dennis
8 years ago

Have fun with the blogging here Frank! And thanks for the book. When I discovered it, there was not a second of doubt, it was an instant buy. 🙂

Tim
Tim
8 years ago

I read your book. The fact that I completed it after just two days means that it was an interesting read for me. I’ve been looking for the most versatile productivity app, and I thought workflowy was just that. And your book convinced me.

Edward
Edward
8 years ago

I pretty much live in Workflowy. Haven’t really played with Markdown but after reading the book I have already started adapting my meeting agendas and notes.

Sam
Sam
8 years ago

I love Workflowy. However, the latest iOS update does not seem to download. Anyone else experiencing this?

sashalahrs
8 years ago
Reply to  Sam

There seems to have been a global issue at iTunes that affected many apps…not just Workflowy. I do not know if Apple has fixed this yet, but please keep trying.

yosemite
yosemite
8 years ago

I bought Frank’s book. It’s very good. I used to be a workflowy “expert” … until I read this book! 🙂

Carl Roberts
8 years ago

I thought I was a power user, but forty pages in, my mind has already been blown.

Dr Andus
8 years ago

Reblogged this on Dr Andus's toolbox.

John
John
8 years ago

I have to say that I’ve used WorkFlowy every single day since March of 2013. I like to think that I know my way around the neighborhood. And yet, Frank’s book has introduced me parts of town that I never knew existed and shown me things that this *amazing* thing can do that I hadn’t even thought to ask about. A fantastic resource that I’m enjoying tremendously! Well done, Frank, and thanks!

Wilhelm Medetz
Wilhelm Medetz
8 years ago

Contains great ideas to make WorkFlowy even more powerful.

Only wish would be a slightly larger font (difficult to read an an iPad) or even better an epub file.

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  Wilhelm Medetz

Good point Wilhelm. I’d like to come out with an EPUB at some point… most definitely for the 2nd edition, which will be complimentary, because you already purchased the 1st edition. I’ll consider bigger font size next time ’round. Then my book would be like 400 pages long 🙂

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago

I have started to read the book yesterday evening, and I am at page 227 right now — addictive!

Written in an entertaining way, it discloses lots of useful and inspiring insights and goodies. I can’t wait to finish the book, and I am looking forward to the blog contributions to come — as well as the second edition of the book.

I hope that the Workflowy ( WF ) team does take up the ( hidden ) suggestions to improve ( even more the already excellent ) WF application.

I have the following remarks for guys with a Mac:

– Stylish for Safari does exist! Install it from https://extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.sobolev.stylish-5555L95H45

– Marked ( http://marked2app.com ) by Brett Terpstra with its clipboard preview for Markdown and all the available export formats, is your friend.

In this context, the following Markdown ( paragraph break ) structure is a suitable alternative to the proposed one:

– Write any ( sub ) header using an ( indented ) bullet point.

– Use the note section for any other ( standard / formatted ) text. Reason: One can just write as usual. All paragraphs / text blocks — enclosed by / with trailing empty lines — are converted as expected. At least with Marked 2. The hack with the ( blank ) note, including the necessary space, is not needed! Sweet.

Last but not least, for people loving Google Chrome, the Clip to Workflowy extension ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clip-to-workflowy/cfifjihfoegnccifkcdomdookdckhaah ) is more than convenient.

Many thanks to Frank and the WF team!

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago

Thanks Stefano!
Awesome news for Safari users 😉
Been tinkering with the “Clip to WorkFlowy” Chrome extension. It’s addictive and makes you want to find use cases for it.

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

You’re welcome Frank and well deserved.

Indeed, the Chrome extension is so practical, that I use it to keep references to all the interesting articles / blogs I find. It would be awesome, if the functionality of the Hoover Cards extension ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hovercards/dighmiipfpfdfbfmpodcmfdgkkcakbco ) could be somehow added 😉

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

Regarding the paragraph break “hack”, I am sure that you tried out the suggested alternative. Have a look at https://workflowy.com/s/prMO4vaIoX — I have copied the first 1.5 pages of the respective “Markdown syntax – From the bottom up” chapter, for illustration purposes, and hope that you don’t mind. Your feelings?

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

Thanks for the illustration Stefano. No worries (boet)… you can keep that up there. That would work nicely… one would just have to get comfortable with that workflow. My main hangup would be that I wouldn’t be able to shuffle paragraphs around as easily as if they were all in bulleted lists… and although the notes are all expanded in the shared list, they would collapse when you’re not working with them. BUT… there is a way to flip a switch with Stylish and pop in some CSS code that keeps all notes expanded. That would work.

Have you seen where I describe setting up a hotkey with PhraseExpress where one could, say, use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to move to the next bullet and automatically create a note with an empty space in the preceding bullet? Otherwise if one had to do that manually every time, it would be a PITA, for sure. I’ve also got some animated GIFs linked to in the book that show what happens when one uses PhraseExpress (a text expander) to automate what would ordinarily take a couple of key strokes. Take a look at the following:
http://www.evernote.com/l/ATRDfLexkMhNioScmMAq9gecwYmAXwJulLU/
http://www.evernote.com/l/ATQaXjao5ZhOY7AlpLiyc8VgziST6mS8JCM/

I think both methods have their plusses and minuses. Thanks for pointing that out Stefano 🙂

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

Valid point Frank. My suggestion is somehow on ( constrained, in a positive way ) middle ground. Note that ( sub ) headers should ( read: suggested ) always be on their own — with full note display via Stylish, it is a delight reading one’s own work in WorkFlowy too.

I have studied your PhraseExpress ( PE ) elaborations and have adapted some of your insights for TextExpander ( TE ). Nice!

Lekker aand.

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

My thoughts exactly. I can picture exactly what you’re describing. Incidentally, it’s hard to find good CSS code that actually keeps ones notes expanded. Even with some themes that are actually based on that. Kind of a hit and miss thing. Also, I need to develop some use cases for that exact hack.

BTW, have you tried the “no bullets” Stylish hack for reading? I’ve read a couple of books in WorkFlowy and hidden the bullets so that you’re just left with paragraphs. Read quite a couple of books in WorkFlowy, in fact… something I hope to expand upon in some shape or form in the next edition of my book or a blog post.

Go Bokke!

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

I’m using the following CSS for full notes:

div.notes div.content {
display: block !important;
height: auto !important;
overflow: visible !important;
}

and I do not have any issues. Seems to be working fine.

Yes, tried out your “no bullets” CSS and I like it. Reading books in WF — sounds intriguing. I am curious, how you go about it … While writing in Markdown — with the paragraph break / note approach as described previously — I rather keep the bullets. They are welcomed and not distracting anchors.

Go Bokke!

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

Just created a separate style for expanded notes. You know, it might just grow on me. You’re right about sub headers being on their own… that takes care of the reshuffling part. Then on the odd occasion a tad bit of cut and paste if necessary. Overall it looks fresh/ clean.

You know what would be nice… a couple of simple YouTube videos/ tutorials demonstrating how easy the process is… how easy it is to set up in Stylish and then flip a switch for whatever styles you want.

We could then do a series on this blog for those who might otherwise be scared off by what seems to be complicated code.

You’re right about the bullets. I rather like them. They become invisible before long. Also, what I do is lighten them a tad (make them a little more opaque)… and I’ve made then just a *wee* bit smaller.

Stefano F. Rausch
8 years ago
Reply to  frank.dg

It is precisely the same approach I am using: separating the “no bullets” and “full notes” CSS into their own ( Stylish ) rules, for easy de- / activation. I like to have the choice, depending on what I am currently working on. Most of the times bullets are displayed, and I can read the full notes, without having to zoom into the item.

Sounds like an interesting side project! I am in. Let us collaborate via … WorkFlowy! 😀

Tweaking the appearance of the bullets, making them more “personal”, is good. I have changed the shared part only, to let them stand out more.

Rob
Rob
8 years ago

His book is fantastic! Opened my eyes to new ways to use Workflowy and I can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for the blog! The more Workflowy the better!

Brandon Featherstone
Brandon Featherstone
8 years ago

I’m kind of amazed that someone has written an entire book and hasn’t been part of discussions already. In any case, can’t wait to read his book AND see some blog posts!

Jesse Patel
Jesse Patel
8 years ago

He’s a prolific commenter and has had guest posts before. I guess I should mention that in the post 🙂 He only told us about the book about a week ago.

frank.dg
frank.dg
8 years ago
Reply to  Jesse Patel

Finished with the book a little over week ago… It’s hot off the Adobe InDesign press.
My sincerest appologies for the delay – In my defense, I spent many moons looking for the right cookie cutter so that all the books would have the same shape and thickness.

Dave Stewart
8 years ago

I too have read Frank’s book. Frank-ly, it’s mind-blowing!

Though there is a LOT of text. I’d love to see some it converted to bite-sized video lessons.

Well done all 🙂

Alex
8 years ago
Reply to  Dave Stewart

You mean mind-flowing!

john
john
7 years ago
Reply to  Alex

Ha!

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