I like to keep things organized so, that I can have access from almost anywhere and to make sure that I have s similar working environment. At the moment I have my writing for the blogs and other notes organized such, that I can quickly sketch down some notes, or edit some blog drafts, from almost every location I’m at. So my main computer at home, my old trusted iBook and my iPhone are keeping the same notes.
The tools I’m using are the iPhone app Simplenote, Notational Velocity, WriteRoom and QuickCursor. These four tools work easily and with almost no major effort together. Simplenote I use on the phone of course. If I have an idea for a post or whatever, I quickly sketch it down. As I have all my drafts (and they are surely a lot of them) in there, I can also make a quick edit on an existing one.
As Simplenote also syncs to it’s webservice, I use now Notational Velocity (which now supports natively SimpleNote) to sync my notes between my computers. If I quickly need to sketch something down, or edit something, a simple shortcut evokes the app and I’m ready to go. I have set up Notational now such, that it also saves it’s files as text-files in a specific folder. This way I always have a backup if needed, and more important, I can link a specific file to the ToDo manager of my choice, Things.
On my desktop-computer/laptop I prefer to use the writing tool WriteRoom and it’s possible to include that into this workflow, thanks to a tool called QuickKeys, which is developed like WriteRoom by Hogbay Software. This tool evokes the text-editor of choice, in my case WriteRoom with a self-assigned shortcut and you’re all set to continue your edit in for example WriteRoom. Closing WriteRoom writes back the edits to Notational in this case. Which then again syncs to SimpleNote and therefore makes it then again available on my phone and other computers and most likely it will work also with the iPad.
This workflow has become rather effective, but then again, I still have more drafts than finished post’s. But that I guess, is a totally different story.
If you have ideas, or suggestions how to improve this workflow feel free to leave a note in the comments. Would love to hear from you.
UPDATE: Just as I finished and posted this, I of course read that WriteRoom’s own syncing service, SimpleText, got updated and now works also with Leopard, which is running here on my iBook. It offers the same functionality as the above approach, except that it’s possible this way, to use WriteRoom also on the iPhone. The only thing to do here, is to point Notational Velocity to the SimpleText folder in the home directory and also have Notational save as plain text. Works like a charm.