My writing life and software

I’ve been spending some time tonight going through all of the software I use (or say I use) in my writing process. It’s a fairly extensive list with a bunch of unnecessary applications:

• Ulysses
• Journey
• MindNode
• Scapple
• Microsoft Word
• Scrivener
• Blogo
• OmniOutliner
• MarginNote
• Zotero
• Evernote
• OmniGraffle
• Aeon Timeline
• Todoist
• Pomodoro Timer
• Sketch
• Paper & Pen(cil)
  

To be honest, I actually spend very little time using any of the above, but they do crowd my dock and ultimately end up distracting me from doing any writing at all. So, since I need to start really focusing on the research and note-taking aspect of my dissertation prep, and since I’m procrastinating a lot today, I figured I would examine my process and see what I can get rid of.

The first thing I did was try and understand my own writing process. This was more difficult than I had thought it would be, since I haven’t really paid too much attention to the how of things, but focused more on the whether or will I aspects. What I came up with is fairly typical, I suppose, and it goes like this (I’m leaving out the bits about procrastination):

1. Note
2. Brainstorm
3. Sketch
4. Research
5. Drafts
6. Edit
7. Publish
   

The steps above take anywhere from hours to weeks, depending on what it is I’m writing, how much I’m procrastinating, and whether the deadline is hard or soft. Steps one through four are often interchangeable, as I will sometimes sketch a visual of an idea while I’m taking notes and brainstorming, or brainstorm while I’m researching something, etc. The goal for my consolidation, then, was to find one key piece of software for each step above, and at the very most two. That correlation is below:

1. Note: MarginNote, Ulysses
2. Brainstorm: Scapple, Aeon Timeline
3. Sketch: Omnigraffle, paper and pen(cil)
4. Research: Zotero, MarginNote, ToDoist
5. Drafts: Ulysses
6. Edit: Ulysses
7. Publish: Microsoft Word, Scrivener, Zotero
   

And there it is, really. Zotero, ToDoist, and MarginNote do the heavy lifting for research, next-steps, bibliography, and annotations. Ulysses is my clear goto for writing, note taking, and working out ideas in text. Omnigraffle is where I go for all things visual unless I’m sketching in a notebook. And for final publication, I export from Ulysses to Microsoft Word or Scrivener for larger projects.

For casual writing, journaling, and working out personal problems in text, I fall back on Ulysses as well (which is what I’m writing this blog post in). I’ve already imported most of my written notes from Evernote and Journey into Ulysses. I deleted Evernote and will be doing the same with Journey.

The section of my dock devoted to my writing process now looks like this. It’s a lot cleaner and more manageable, and generally in order of my process.

My new application tool chest looks like this, then:

• Ulysses
• Scapple
• Microsoft Word
• Scrivener
• MarginNote
• Zotero
• OmniGraffle
• Aeon Timeline
• ToDoist
• Paper & Pen(cil)
  

It’s still quite a few applications, but I’m okay with that. I get bored looking at one interface for too long, so this allows me to switch back and forth and try out new ideas and whatnot.

If you’re interested in trying any of these applications, definitely check them out when you can.