WorkFlowy is the most insanely easy to use mutant organizational/to-do list/outlining productivity app you can find for doing anything, period.
Their official slogan is: ‘Organize your brain‘
They could add to that, or change it to ‘Organize your life’
WorkFlowy is incredibly versatile and you can adapt it to do almost anything you need it to do. From simply taking notes to creating an outline, keeping a to-do list, creating project checklist templates, writing a book, or any other project you can think of, WorkFlowy makes organizing a snap.
Events such as planning a wedding, birthday party, company holiday party, fund-raiser, etc… can also be easily organized with WorkFlowy too. I use WorkFlowy as a project checklist when building new websites, to outline articles (which I did with this article) and as a to-do list among other things.
Key Features
The designers of WorkFlowy have struck a fantastic balance between form and function. WorkFlowy has a minimalistic layout which prevents you from being distracted while working. However, within that minimalistic layout are some of the most powerful yet easy to use features to make your work as productive as possible.
In WorkFlowy each line you create is called an ‘item’ and each item can be treated as a separate list/document with sub items and sub-sub items, etc… all nested in an outline format. The great part is that each item can be moved or rearranged in any order and all of the nested items under that item move with it.
How many nested items can you have in WorkFlowy?
Using WorkFlowy as a task manager/to-do list is super easy with the ‘Complete’ button which changes the font color to gray and puts a strike-through line through the text in the completed item. In your settings you also have the option to either show or hide completed items.
Moving around in WorkFlowy is really easy with several different options to choose from.
Each item has a bullet at the beginning of the line and by clicking on that bullet you can zoom in to view just that item along with any nested items underneath it, the rest of the items above it are listed in breadcrumb fashion along the top of the page. You can click on any of the items listed in the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page to jump to that item.
Each time you click on an item’s bullet that action brings you to the ‘page’ for that item. This allows you to work on that item without having to scroll through the longer list of all your items. This also brings up another cool feature, ‘starred pages’.
‘Starring’ a page acts as a bookmark. You can ‘star’ any item’s page at any level, even nested items in the same list. There is a star next to the search box at the top of the page and when you click the star it brings up a list of all your ‘starred’ pages. Just click on any of your starred pages to go directly to that page. This makes it super easy to move around WorkFlowy to the pages you use most.
The search inside WorkFlowy is spot on. Just start typing in the search box and the search results will start filling in based on just a few letters, similar to an auto-complete and the search results will refine as you keep typing. The only thing you need to be aware of is the search results only return items that are in the current item you are in, so to search all of your items you need to return to your home page before searching.
For more advanced searching and data management you can use both ‘#’ and ‘@’ tags in WorkFlowy to tag each item with 2 different, unique tags. For example you can use the ‘#’ to tag information and the ‘@’ to tag the names of people or projects associated with the information. Once you start using tags just search or click on any of the tags to filter your items down to those with the tag you clicked.
WorkFlowy makes sharing and collaborating a breeze too. You can share any item with others in either view only, or edit mode by sending a unique URL for just that item. The items nested items under the shared item are included in the sharing process but the person will not have access to any of your other WorkFlowy items. Paid pro users can also include a password for added security when sharing.
WorkFlowy account types
There are 2 types of accounts you can set up with WorkFlowy, free or Pro (paid).
Free accounts are limited to 500 items per month with a basic black text on white background theme and 2 fonts to choose from.
With free accounts you can use a referral link to get new users to sign up for a WorkFlowy account. For each new user that signs up through your referral link both you and the new user will get an additional 250 items to use per month. You can click on my referral link here and sign up, if you do each of us will receive an extra 250 items per month.
Pro account
You can upgrade to a Pro account for $4.99 per month, or $49 per year. Pro accounts offer some great extra features including:
Unlimited Lists, you can create as many lists and items as you want, no limits.
Backup to Dropbox, you can backup your WorkFlowy account to Dropbox so you never have to worry about losing any of the data stored in your WorkFlowy account.
Password Protected Collaboration, as a Pro user you can share any part of your WorkFlowy account with specific people, verified by email address and password.
Theme and Fonts, as a pro user you can to change the look and feel of WorkFlowy with a library of themes and fonts to make it more personal. Currently there are an additional 6 themes and 4 fonts to choose from.
The bottom line:
WorkFlowy is a top notch productivity app. The combination of intuitive design with killer features make WorkFlowy easy to use and powerful enough to organize anything.
I can’t recommend WorkFlowy strongly enough. No matter what you do you will find WorkFlowy useful so go ahead, click the link below to give WorkFlowy a test drive.
Click here to sign up for your free WorkFlowy account today.
Don’t forget this is my referral link so if you click this link and sign up each of us will receive an extra 250 items each month. Thank you in advance if you do use my link.
