WORKING... FINALLY!
Is it possible to build a web application that really fits people needs? Of course you can: to know what people need you must ask them.
This is how the idea of WorkOutLoud - a new product built with ruby on rails - was born.
WorkOutLoud will share its construction process on the web with the users.
Do you want to know what WorkOutLoud is all about?
Do you want to know what WorkOutLoud is all about?
Oct 6, 2008
Introducing Memo, a new functionality
Making your workday really productive requires an iron will, and during this days I'm thinking a lot about what can really help you reaching and maintaining your concentration. I've made a small list of what you must to work productively:
posted by Massimo Sgrelli
- Start your workday checking your emails titles. Yes, only titles. Don't open them unless you believe it's really necessary
- Close your email client: you can answer to emails later
- Limit your social interaction to the minimum necessary: close Twitter, Pownce, and all the chat clients
- The only tools you need to use are the ones you normally use to accomplish your everyday activities (Textmate+terminal, or Power Point, or Photoshop, etc.)
- Signal to your colleagues what you are working on as soon as you can
I'm designing WorkOutLoud page structure with the specific goal to avoid you unnecessary distractions. When you actually start to work on a specific activity, WorkOutLoud have to hidden all the data related to other people activities, because you don't need them. If you decide to suspend what you are doing to have a quick look to other people worklogs, you must do it consciously. So, you leave your current context and you move to check people worklogs. You stop doing your job because you need to be in-sync with someone else activity. Be careful, I said "you need to be", you are not just curious.
What do you actually need at minimum while doing your job?
Thinking about how I work, I would say I need a plain notepad solution: a simple space to take notes and to fix some ideas. Very often I need to take a quick memo, without losing concentration or momentum, and stopping my current activity just for 5 seconds.
This is the function I'm currently designing, and I'm calling it Memos. This is a first draft of the its layout. Tell me what you think about it.
While taking notes, I think could be really useful to allow putting "tags" to them. Probably limiting the number of tags to 3 could help people to give real meaning to their memos.
