#getflow

[stoweboyd]

How I Keep Track

Since I am launching a series called Keeping Track -- exploring how busy, creative people stay on top of their goals, commitments, plans, and schedules -- it makes sense to start with my own fumbling attempts in that area.

First, let me start by offering a confession: while I use a number of tools and techniques I am an admitted imperfectionist, and as such I'm not necessarily an exemplar of getting things done, except as the poster child for scruffy messoholics who can manage to do a fairly good job of keeping track, despite everything.

I aspire to keeping track in the three obvious dimensions: the future, past, and present.

The Future: Calendar and Journal

I am fairly scrupulous with Google Calendar, penciling in possible travel and events in the far future -- I put a question mark on provisional, or penciled in, appointments. Things that are more concrete, like what I am planning for the next several weeks have no question marks.

And near-term events are also likely to be included in my work management tool of choice, these days, called Flow (getflow.com). Within Flow I maintain 'two sets of books': projects like this Work Futures website, or client projects like my work with Traction, which I lay out in a more or less conventional way, using Flow's project and task management capabilities to track deadlines and task requirements, and capture descriptions and interaction with other coworkers.

This is not an in-depth review of Flow -- although I plan one -- but in passing let me note that it has several features that make it highly attractive to me. Flow supports markdown formatting in task and project descriptions, which I have a strong preference for. And projects and tasks have individual links that can be used in imaginative ways, cross-linking things outside of the silos of projects.

I also have shifted my idea spinning, planning, and goal setting into Flow, and out of document managers. Sometimes these ideas start as comments or just a sentence in a project description or a task note, and sometimes I start with the definition of a project -- like this Keeping Track series -- and the ideas and plan are captured there from the start.

When working with others on these future-oriented activities I rely on Flow's task comment threads heavily (and lament that project descriptions lack comments). Note the same affordances are used in present-oriented activities, too.

The Present: Journaling

Flow's fluidity plays a large role in the second 'set of books'. I am strongly committed to journaling my work on a daily basis, and by extension, on a weekly and monthly basis as well. Within Flow I manage a project called '2017', and a series of tasks, one for each day. Months are represented   by labels in the task list.  

Every day (Mostly. Remember that I am an imperfectionist!) I open or create a task associated with today's date, like '2017-12-01'. I use a special rule for weekend, collapsing Saturday and Sunday together like '2017-12-02 - 03'. I might have created a day's (or weekend's) task earlier than the day itself, because I may have known in advance that I'd be doing something on that day. For example, on Friday I decided I'd write this Keeping Track post on the weekend, so I added that as a subtask to the '2017-12-02 - 03' task. (Yes, Flow supports subtasks, but only one level deep, alas.) Each morning, I consider the items already added to the day's task list, perhaps adding others, and move them into a priority order.

The two sets of books comes into play each morning. For example, I planned to do some work today on a Traction initiative, and so I added a subtask about that. If it's significant enough, Flow's cross-linking allows the daily item to reference the Traction project or a task in it, or alternatively, to link from the project to the various activities undertaken on a day to day basis and captured in the journal entries.

Here's a screenshot of the '2017' project on the left opened to '2017-12-02 -03' (under the '2017-12' section label), and the subtask 'Note kumu.io to Erick' selected and checked off. Note the line of text in the description says 'for the emerging tech map project', which includes a link to the emergent tech map project'.

This obsessive attention to the activities of each day, for me, takes the place of writing in an analog journal by hand. I often (but not religiously) end my day by reflecting on what transpired, capturing thoughts and observations in the daily task description. I also move or copy subtasks that had not been accomplished to the next day or later days, relying on Flow's drag and drop interface.

The Past: Recollection

I rely on journaling in several ways.

First, I use it to channel my daily activities, to prioritize, and memorialize task work, as discussed above.

Second, I rely on journaling for the benefits of clarifying and capturing my thinking about what I accomplished or didn't, rather than retrieving that information later.

However, I do go back to my notes captured in the tasks that represent actions taken, meetings held, and calls made. That's the third use case.  In fact, I create journal entries for calls and meetings, like '2017-12-01 Betty Wong call' rather than in a Google or Dropbox Paper doc, as I did for years prior to adopting Flow. And during the call or meeting, I take notes in the task description, and often create subtasks for follow-on actions that arise during the call. In may cases I move those subtasks, like 'follow up with Betty Wong with proposal', into a project that is related, typically named by the corresponding company or project name, like "acme' or 'milan february conference'. And I frequently revisit the notes from the calls and meetings.

I use a number of other tools for recollection. I rely heavily on saved.io, a simple bookmarking tool, to manage an archive of links and associated notes. Saved.io is very lightweight, and has a beautifully simple UX: you simply add 'saved.io/' in front of the URL in your browser, and it captures the URL and allows you to edit the note field, including tags (tags appear to be slightly broken in the tool at present, although you can search for them). Even better, you can add a category before the 'saved.io/', like 'work.saved.io/' and the link will be added to the 'work' category in the tool. Saved.io lacks social capabilities, so it is really just for personal use.

I also use the Chrome plug-in Toby to deal with tab overload in the browser. I often get to a point where I have dozens of tabs open in several browsers windows, and rather than keep them open indefinitely, or bookmark the various pages one by one in saved.io, I use Toby to save sets, like all the tabs in a single window, so that I can reopen them later. (I am looking at GhostBrowserwhich takes these ideas even further.)

I seldom delete email immediately after reading it and dealing with it. I generally archive it, and cull old emails in large batches at the end of the year from a year (I recently deleted 2012, for example), or delete all email from with a particular sender, like The New Yorker, or companies that have gone out of business.

I also rely on a Chrome plug-in called Better History to search through my browser history for things I didn't bookmark but should have.

My stoweboyd.com blog has transitioned over the years to acting as a writer's daybook, where I capture images, quotes, links, and report others works. I create short form posts there on a variety of subjects, ranging from politics and economics to culture and poetry. Much of my long form writing started as a short-term piece on stoweboyd.com.

The Big Picture

I am a media hound and inveterate tool head, so it may be that what seems sensible to me may be a bit of overkill for others. Nonetheless, I subscribe to the principles that the unexamined life isn't worth living, and much of what I do is the outgrowth of failure: failing to find bits and pieces that I scribbled somewhere, dates buried in emails, and great ideas forgotten in a file somewhere. I confess that my way of keeping track is as much a shell protecting me from myself and my bad memory as a means to more cleanly organize to productively face the world. My approach is as much an umbrella as a bicycle.

[anaturaldesign]

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[thestartuppitch]

Pitch for GetFlow

Company / App Name: GetFlow https://getflow.space Twitter – @GetFlow3 What does it do? GetFlow is provides high-quality ambient sounds, meditations, ASMR, and custom hypnosis scripts. (more…)

[kingajaxtelamon-blog]

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[lucillesfloraloffishkill]

The rainbow rose!! Get them while they are hot!! $75.00 a dozen!! #rainbowroses #getflowers #shoplocal #fishkill #florist #valentinesday #february14th #loveisintheair (at LUCILLE'S FLORAL OF FISHKILL)

[minimizame-blog]

Flow, un nuevo sabor GTD

Os quiero presentar Flow, una muy buena compañera en nuestro viaje, destino; la productividad.

Hoy, 22/03/2011 acaba de ser liberada la versión oficial, hasta ahora sólo podíamos jugar con la versión Beta.

Es una aplicación de pago, 9.99$ si realizamos el pago mensual y 99$ si realizamos el pago anual. Creo que es una buena inversión.

¿Qué me gusta de Flow?

El diseño, me parece espectacular, inmejorable. 

GTD compliant, está basada en metodología GTD, ya sabéis: Inbox, proyectos, contextos, etc.

Trabajo en equipo, creo que hasta el momento es la única que ofrece una forma sencilla de organizar y delegar tareas para un equipo.

Usabilidad

Es muy fácil de usar, además de contar con un tutorial paso a paso que nos explica con detalle las distintas opciones.

La organización está bien resuelta ya que podemos crear carpetas para agrupar proyectos.

Rapidez, hasta el momento la aplicación web funciona igual de bien que si fuera nativa. No tiene que recargar constantemente la página, está muy bien programada.

Colaboración

Una de las opciones diferentes al resto de herramientas y que creo que es clave, es la de delegar tareas. Además permite escribir comentarios en las tareas para poder realizar seguimiento al estado actual de cada una de ellas.

Sin esa particularidad sería una herramienta más. Y no lo es, ya que es tremendamente potente para gestionar un equipo. (lo voy a poner en marcha, ya contaré que tal sale la experiencia)

Flow, algunos detalles importantes

- Sincronización:

En la nube, no necesitas disponer de un servicio en la nube tipo Dropbox, MobileMe. Los datos quedan almacenados en la nube por defecto y de forma transparente al usuario. Importantísimo!

- Aplicación Web

100% usable, rápida y con todas las opciones de cualquier aplicación nativa.

Plataformas nativas: iOS / MacOS

A continuación dejo algunas capturas de la aplicación para iOS:

La aplicación para MacOS todavía está en estado Beta. No es exactamente una aplicación nativa, es una especie de integración con el sistema. Queda abierta y con un icono en la barra de menús que nos permite crear tareas y poco más.

Está bien pensado, se centran en su aplicación Web para entornos de escritorio y en una nativa para iOS.

Tanto la aplicación para iOS como la de MacOS son gratuitas, el único pago que hay que realizar es el que comentaba al principio del post.

Mi opinión personal

Ha sido un flechazo a primera vista. Me gusta muchísimo y voy a considerar seriamente empezar a utilizar Flow en lugar del todo poderoso OmniFocus o quizás las dos.

[xyzzyb]

Get Flow

I've tried almost a dozen TODO list trackers over the years. From text based solutions like TODO.txt or Xavier Shay's XTDO to fancy-pants GUI solutions like Appigo Todo or Pomodoro App for the iPad to web-based solutions like Toodledo. I've also tried enterprise solutions like Jira, or code-based solutions like github issues or redmine or trac.

None of them have ever lasted. I bump into a wall of "it doesn't quite do enough for me". I want a todo system that:

Tracks my TODO items from my laptop, iPad, iPod Touch, or any web browser

Can assign due dates for tasks; can easily create repeatable tasks.

Can group tasks into lists, and tag them with keywords and flagging

Can comment on tasks and use those comments as future reference/documentation (i.e. they have to be searchable and, ideally, support at least minimal formatting)

Can delegate tasks to other people

Tasks must be exportable into standard data formats

Most systems fall down at that first point. None of them have made it through all of them.

Until now.

Flow has changed my expectations of todo tracking. It's all of those points, all of them! And wrapped in an absolutely gorgeous interface. There are even niceties like a native OSX client that adds an Apple menu icon to easily and quickly drop in new tasks.

I've been using their free trial for two weeks now and have been nothing but pleased. I even got a response from their support email within an hour of asking how to do something. They even automatically renewed my first free trial for another two weeks after noticing that I hadn't really used it yet.

If you have a list of things to get done, and you want to sanely track them. You should definitely give Flow a try.

[lapaninja]

Flow - All your team’s communication, clear and organized

https://www.getflow.com/

[minimizame-blog]

Trabajar en equipo con más Flow

Ya hace algo más de un mes que empecé a utilizar Flow, sinceramente me parece un software excepcional.

Además he podido enseñar los principios del GTD a mi equipo y estamos usando Flow para gestionar nuestras tareas.

¿Cuántos formamos parte del equipo?

Soy responsable de un servicio formado por 38 personas, 33 de ellas a turnos de Mañana/Tarde/Noche para cubrir un 24x7 y 5 con horario de consultor de 8h a 20h encargados de gestionar el servicio junto a mi.

Estamos usando Flow en el equipo de gestión del servicio (formado por 5 personas y yo mismo), de momento no me atrevo a intentar implantar una herramienta de este tipo en los turnos. No creo que lo llegue a hacer.

¿Cuántas cuentas usamos?

Pues para el equipo tenemos 1, sí con 1 cuenta genérica nos organizamos bien. El resto de los componentes del equipo tienen lo que la gente de Flow llama Collaborator View.

Collaborator View: te permite recibir tareas (es decir te pueden delegar tareas), publicar comentarios y completarlas, nada más.

Suficiente para poder trabajar en equipo. Además otro miembro del equipo y yo hicimos la inversión para tener una cuenta privada ya que nos interesaba tener esta herramienta para organizarnos.

¿Cómo nos organizamos?

Como sólo disponemos de 1 cuenta que puede crear tareas hacemos que la persona que gestiona esa cuenta coincida con la persona que organiza el buzón de correo del equipo. Así la persona encargada de la organización del email lo clasifica, lo convierte en accionable si aplica y crea la tarea en Flow.

El correo queda pendiente marcado con una categoría que dice "Pasado a Flow".

Yo dispongo de mi cuenta personal y los otros miembros del equipo también pueden usar la genérica cuando necesitan dar de alta tareas.

Lo diferente respecto a otras herramientas

Estos son los rasgos diferenciales respecto a otras herramientas que me hicieron enamorarme de Flow.

En la creación de una tarea:

- Delegate

Permite crear una tarea y delegarla a otra persona, no es necesario que tenga cuenta de pago, puede usar la vista de colaboración.

- Followers

Los "seguidores" serán aquellas personas que serán notificadas ante cualquier cambio en la tarea. 

En la organización de las listas:

- Collaborators

En las listas puedes añadir colaboradores, estos colaboradores serán las personas que puedan ver el contenido de estas listas, y crear tareas en la mismas. Para las listas que no tienen colaboradores tranquilo/a!! son privadas!

Lo bueno

Que están en constante evolución, hay muchos usuarios que han hechos propuestas muy interesantes que todavía no están implementadas, pero llegarán!

Con esto por ejemplo yo sería más que feliz ;)

Tareas recurrentes

Vista de calendario (Calendar View)

Exportar/importar las tareas

Vista de impresión (Print View)

Ahhh y las aplicaciones nativas, ya tienen la de iPhone, están con la de iPad y tienen previsto (sin fecha) la de Android. Creo que cuando lleguen a todo eso serán muy muy diferenciales.

Lo malo: el precio

Generó mucha controversia, después de 14 días para probar la aplicación de forma gratuita tienes que decidir si compras o no compras. Todas las cuentas son San Pagando (a excepción de la vista de colaborador).

Cuando la aplicación dejó de ser Beta los chicos de GetFlow no había todavía publicado ningún plan de precios. Creo que les cogió algo despistados, finalmente ante la petición de muchos usuarios publicaron un plan de precios que daba miedo! y provocó mil quejas.

99$ por pago anual.

9$ por pago mensual.

Así que publicaron unos descuentos para equipos que no están del todo mal.

Lo medio arreglaron ofreciendo descuentos para equipos que bueno, haciendo número tampoco es tan caro. En mi caso al tener cuenta Beta el precio también era de 69$ para mi cuenta individual, que con la conversión a euros son 47€ (unos 4 euros mensuales) no está nada mal!

Os animo a probar Flow (y no tengo comisión!)