In a world inundated with apps promising to streamline our lives and elevate our efficiency, we end up believing that somewhere, in some app store, just a tap away lies the answer to our problems.
We dream of the perfect app: a lovely interface, flawlessly synced across devices, ready to elevate us to the next level. Nowadays, it must have a powerful AI to which we can delegate our work while we search online which text editor Stephen King uses to write his novels, igniting a spark of hope that in this way we can emulate his success.
Without a more mundane perspective, it is easy losing sight of what truly matters: crafting a process adapted to our personal traits and the nature of the job at hand. It’s about how you work, not what you work with. Build workflows that work for you, not the other way around.
As a software developer myself I made this same mistake looking for tools, frameworks and programming languages. While I struggled keeping up with everything, I dived into productivity systems like GTD, explored PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management System) like Second Brain or Zettelkasten and took a special interest on how frameworks around product management build things that matters and last: Jobs To Be Done, the Kano Model, Users Journey and Story Mapping or Design Thinking.
TaskFolders is the end result of those lessons and the beginning of an exploration on how developers can focus more mastering their system and less on their tools.
Since no tool is perfect, any choice must be perfectly extensible. At the same time, I do not believe in being lazy throwing the ball to an ecosystem of extensions and over rely on them. Critical workflows need a great deal of care, selective curation. Not getting mixed into a plugin popularity contest.
Do not expect a visually stunning app. There are many better alternatives specializing in that area. A learning curve is also there. Laying a foundation based on flexibility comes at the cost of initial complexity and a lack of graphical glamour.
Currently, Software Developers and DevOps enthusiasts will find it easier to navigate this platform. In the long term, I plan to improve the user experience so that less technically minded individuals can also benefit from this project. No matter in which side of that spectrum you are right now, there will be plenty of content to learn about systems.
You are very welcome to join this journey. Best way to start is joining the newsletter. It is low volume and focussed on announcing the most important events.
Keep an eye to the blog for technical posts about my experience building TaskFolders, note-taking strategies, knowledge management systems and crafting processes. The docs section is where I curate lessons, feedback and document the apps I release.
Here, you will find content to uncover what works best for you by experimenting with different methods, workflows, and techniques. Welcome aboard!