Thinking about workflow, part 1: The problem

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Especially in the last year, I've accumulated a whole slew of apps and processes that are supposedly helping me to save time and keep connected, yada yada. This thread follows my attempt to narrow everything to the bare minimum.

This list sound familiar?
  • Facebook, Myspace and twitter
  • Friendfeed, feedalizr, and now moodblast
  • blip, YouTube, archive.org
  • Tumblr, my own Quills blog
  • 6-8 mailing lists
  • Yojimbo, Evernote, OmniFocus
  • iBlogger, MarsEdit
  • Mail.app, Gmail
  • me.com albums, flickr, picasa
  • Google reader
Those are just the applications. There should be a diagram that shows the connections between them. Some crosspost to some but not all of the others. Some aggregate incoming feeds but don't broadcast out. Some share parts of themselves online, some don't. Some expose an API. Some of them I can access via laptop, some laptop and/or web, some web only, some iPhone only, and some laptop/web/iPhone.

OK, so the objective is this:

  • write/post things the fewest number of times,
  • making them visible the most number of places
  • using the fewest applications/processes
  • maintaining the most metadata and formatting
  • without creating any duplicates entries anywhere