Workflows

(for those wondering about the unrelated hippo banner: since this is the first official blog being posted both on my Minds and Steemit, I thought it fitting to use my Steemit banner for kicks and giggles.)

I thought this would be a good first blog to post both on Minds as well as my Steemit, given the content. After going through the whole process to create a Steemit account and logging into it for the first time, I took one look at the dashboard and thought…

...What am I supposed to do?

I followed several people, why is it still saying I’m not following anyone in my feed? Why does it say I already have two posts when I have only posted once so far?(answer: it counts a comment I made earlier) How do you format things like italics, bold, and headers?(answer: markdown) And most of all, why do I already have over eighty followers when I’ve only posted once?(technically twice)

I have the answers to some of these questions, but not all. This underlies a larger problem that I need to grapple with; I don’t know how to use Steemit yet. Sure, I get the gist of the site, but I’m missing the details and best practices. It is one thing to post a comment, but another thing entirely to find relevant posts that are close enough to one’s personal experience to allow leaving truly insightful comments. It is one thing to write a blog, and another to have it become popular. Basically, there is a very large difference between managing to perform an action, and optimizing said action.

Where am I going with this? I wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about workflow. I am not using this blog to say that the available workflows for Steemit are poor, but rather that I do not have a good enough understanding of the platform yet to craft my own workflow to use it properly. A workflow is something everyone creates, usually unconsciously, but sometimes consciously and deliberately. Think for a moment; how do you send someone a text? You likely don’t think much about it, but you do take several complex actions once you decide to text someone. First you take out your phone, then unlock it if you have security like a password-pattern, pin, or biometrics. Then, you open the messaging app by navigating to the correct icon and tapping on it, you perform more actions like selecting a recipient or conversation, and finally you can type your message.

On a side note, have you ever considered how complicated typing is? There are a large number of keys that all represent different characters, as well as buttons that do different things. We spend years learning to use a keyboard effectively, most people eventually learning to touch type at reasonably fast speeds without needing to look at the keys. They don’t need to look at the keys because they know by memory where the various keys are, which speeds up the process of typing. So many people who use this rarely think about the precision and rapid unconscious decisions being made as they craft a sentence, their attention instead on the meaning of the words they are stringing together. This is a fantastic example of workflow in itself; simple actions strung together in a format to simplify more complicated actions, like typing a message on a computer.

But back to the original example. So, you finish typing your message, then you click send. Congratulations, you’re done! And in just a handful of minutes, no less. Did you think very hard in each step? No, probably not. It all came naturally. You didn’t try to start typing before you were in the messaging app, and you didn’t try to select a conversation before you had your phone out. Each step followed very naturally from the previous step.

But this doesn’t happen when using a new phone if they move these features around. This is typically why things like texting and making phone calls don’t change much in practice between each generation of phone. And yet, other applications do this all the time as they try to make the overall user experience better, especially in their earlier versions. AND, as I am dealing with right now, you inevitably have new users who have never used the system at all, and thus need to figure out how everything works and relates to each other in order to perform the more complex operation of, in this instance, properly managing a Steemit account.

To give another example of a workflow, one that I consciously formed, there is my creative writing workflow. While my workflow for writing stories is still informal, I still have a structure where I always define my current goal. Brainstorming is different from outlining, and writing a first draft is different from editing a first draft; the priorities are greatly altered for each of these activities. First: Brainstom ideas. Second: Create an outline. Third: Expand on each point to create a basic plot. Fourth: Write the first draft. Fifth and beyond: Proofread and edit. If I ever go back in this workflow, I basically scrap all the later work and have to traverse the later phases again. I frequently hear people talk about all the time how hard it is to actually write something complete and find motivation to keep at it, looking for motivational speeches and self help books for guidance on writing as a hobby or profession. But honestly, this is all I believe one needs to accomplish a goal. A direct path from start to finish, and then the simple, deliberate act of executing all the steps. If any steps are too vague or don’t actually lead to the next step, then the problem is in the workflow, not in execution. That is an important distinction to make if success is the ultimate goal.

To close this out, I would like to encourage people to examine their own workflows. How long does it take you to complete a task, like responding to an email? Running to the grocery store? Do you make the same mistakes frequently, like misspelling words in an email or forgetting to buy something specific on your trip to the store? These can many times be solved by looking at the workflow you take. Also, generally speaking, workflows function best when cutting out as many possible distractions. When I write, I’ll sometimes have a video playing in the background, but I don’t shy away from pausing it when it becomes more of a hindrance instead of a general background noise to help keep my mind off the silence. Different workflows work better for different people, and I would encourage everyone try out new approaches when you aren’t getting the results you want. Who knows? I might end up preferring Steemit over Minds in the end, despite my current flailing. Overall, though, I just enjoy being able to speak my mind to other people, while also giving them the chance to do the same. We all prosper when ideas can be exchanged without fear of reprisal. So I will continue creating content, and I earnestly hope people around the world continue to do the same.