workflowy
Workflowy review. A representative outliner app. An app with a plethora of features as you use it more.
One app that carves out its niche in the plethora of writing apps is the Outliner format app. As you can see in the screenshots below, this app elevates what is typically a basic feature in writing apps, the bullet points, to a primary function, enhancing its related features significantly. As a result, while it’s a great app for those who enjoy listing and jotting down ideas, it can be divisive as a writing app, catering to a specific niche of users. And among those outliner apps, the most representative one would be Workflowy.
Table of Contents
- Workflowy review. A representative outliner app. An app with a plethora of features as you use it more.
Workflowy appears very simple, but it’s a highly sophisticated app.
There wasn’t much beyond being an outliner in the past, but upon closer inspection, it’s packed with features.
Honestly, at first, I didn’t think this outline format was anything special. Because almost every app out there converts ‘* with spaces’ into a list, making it usable. The WordPress platform I’m currently using naturally supports this feature as well. So I thought there was no unique merit to Workflowy. Of course, if manually adding bullets is tedious for you, you might find it useful…
However, upon revisiting, I realized that while the app maintains a simple framework, Workflowy offers more than just simplicity and listing. It seems like they’ve packed in as many features as possible within the confines of this simple interface. For instance, each bullet point isn’t merely a list item; they’re also referred to as nodes. These nodes function as notebooks within a note-taking app. You can create nested nodes within nodes, allowing you to delve deeper, akin to sub-items or notes within a notebook. Even without bullet points, if you create a separate “paragraph,” it doesn’t turn into a list format, allowing for conventional writing app usage.
As simple as Workflowy is, its speed is fast, and its characteristics as an outliner have become a sort of personality.
Adding pictures or changing the color of items within the nodes is basic functionality. However, what surprised me again is that it’s also possible to view the format in both the standard bullet format and the board format. The board format allows viewing documents like a Kanban board, and creating nodes within nodes as mentioned earlier can resemble creating sub-items on a Kanban board.
I love Kanban boards, so I like this app a lot more now. The reason I used Trello or Todoist for quite a long time was also because of the outstanding performance of this Kanban board feature. In this sense, it’s not just about the appearance of being an outliner; it has almost halfway become a comprehensive to-do app. Of course, the advantage of the outliner format is that while it may lack graphically, it is extremely simple and easy to understand, so I think it has captured a certain level of performance, functionality, and personality.
However, there isn’t a tutorial within the app itself (although there is one on the website), so as you use the app, you gradually realize the app’s true value by discovering features like “Oh, it can do this too.” As a result, you might initially think of it as just another ordinary app, as I did. So, you might wonder if the app is a bit lacking in intuitiveness…
The free version also allows for some usage to a certain extent. The paid version also offers decent value for money.
Originally, I thought it was expensive, but compared to competitors, especially Evernote’s pricing…
Workflowy offers a decent level of functionality, even with the free version. One peculiar aspect here is that they limit the number of notes you can set up monthly. However, from my brief usage, I didn’t notice the monthly limit number being depleted rapidly. If used casually for light task management, it seems there shouldn’t be much of a problem for typical usage. Even with the free version, device syncing is available. I would say it’s a pretty cost-effective app.
The paid version costs $49 annually. The price may seem objectively expensive, but recently, with the price increases of writing apps, especially the most famous one in this field, Evernote, the relative cost-effectiveness of this app has increased even more. With the paid subscription, the aforementioned limit on the number of lists disappears, the file upload capacity becomes unlimited, backup to Dropbox is possible, and various fonts, themes, and other settings become available.
Unless you’re a heavy user, the advantages exclusive to the paid version might not be significant. Of course, this statement also implies that the basic value of money is good. However, compared to to-do apps, it’s pricey. It’s between apps like Any.Do.
Workflowy is a highly polished app, but aesthetically, it’s a matter of preference.
It looks like a writing app, but it’s a to-do app. It’s good to see them maximizing their creativity(?), I suppose…
I thought it might be possible to use it like a writing app since it’s an outliner, but unfortunately, it lacks some statistics features I consider crucial in writing apps. Despite its appearance, it’s still primarily a to-do app, so there are some limitations when using it as a writing app. Still, as a to-do app, it’s excellent. It has its personality compared to other writing apps, and its outliner-like structure makes it easy to grasp at a glance, which I think makes it quite a good app.
Since its appearance is so simple, the fast speed is a bonus. Workflowy is undoubtedly commendable for continually developing features beyond the inherent limitations of the app. I am excited to observe how the app will preserve its character while continuously enhancing its features in the future.
Workflowy Conclusion
Good point
- The app is quite fast.
- The more you use it, the more features and depth it has.
- It’s cost-effective for simple data organization tasks.
Bad point
- The outliner format itself can be a matter of preference.
- As a writing app, it falls short.
- The app is clean but not flashy.
