workflowy – Jamie DeBree

Digital Paper Everywhere
Last week, I got an email that both annoyed and concerned me, and we’ll get to that in a bit. First, some note-taking/storage history:

I’ve been an Evernote user since 2011 – a paid user, at that. Somewhere around the time they started screwing with the interface several years ago, I quit using Evernote and switched to Workflowy, because Workflowy is simpler and I just didn’t really need all the bells and whistles of Evernote, plus I *hated* the new interface (they had a lot of slow-loading issues and such then too).

But…I still paid my yearly Evernote fees, because I was too lazy to export *all* my data, and it wasn’t all that expensive in the grand scheme of things ($35 per year).

Fast forward to this past July. I’d been happily using the paid version of Workflowy for years when suddenly I couldn’t get to it from work. This is a big deal for my workflow (so to speak), and I work in our IT department, but it was being blocked somewhere higher up the chain, and there wasn’t any way to deal with that. So, remembering I had an Evernote account (and a more expensive one, as the cost had gone up to $70 just last year), I switched back to Evernote, since I could get to that everywhere.

Now we’re back to last week’s email. Evernote has changed ownership, and after last year’s price doubling, they’ve now decided that the yearly rate will jump almost double *again* to $129.99 per year.

Needless to say, that’s a lot of money for a program I use basically for text notes. It can do a lot more, but I use exactly one other feature (emailing directly from the program) that I really don’t need to use (it’s just convenient).

So I started looking at other note-taking apps, and most of them don’t have an easy way to import Evernote files. The ones that do, either don’t have online interfaces (so still couldn’t get to them at work) or they have much less user-friendly organizational structures that would require a lot of cleanup and reorganization on my part. *sigh* So, I resigned myself to paying the extra money, while still looking around at what other people are using and wishing Obsidian or Joplin had web/cloud user interfaces, even for a fee.

Then I remembered my Workflowy account, and just on the off-chance, tried to reach it again from work. And it’s no longer blocked! Hallelujah!

Needless to say, I re-upped my subscription (yearly is $49, monthly is $4.99 – I went for monthly because it’s December, but I’ll switch to the cheaper yearly after the holidays), and I’m working on migrating my Evernote notebooks and data to Obsidian for safe (and permanent) keeping. I’ll move what I need to Workflowy as I need it.

So, all’s well that ends well, and I actually prefer Workflowy anyways, so I’m very happy with this turn of events. Thank you, Evernote, for pricing me out and reminding me to try Workflowy again!

Are you an Evernote user? Will you be switching with the extreme pricing change?

Writing News
I finished the story that I’ll be sending out in Christmas cards this year! It feels good to finish…well, anything, really. So I’m excited about that. Now I think I’ll work on another short story for the season while I’m in the mood, and then I’ll get back to Magpie in January.

Or maybe I’ll set the short in Magpie. Tempting….

Recommendations
I highly recommend Workflowy if you’re more text-oriented like me (rather than graphical/image-driven). There is a free version, for those who don’t need/want unlimited space. And Obsidian or Joplin if you don’t need a web interface and have something like Dropbox for syncing (that’s what I’ll use to sync those notes between my laptop and phone).

That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

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Duly Noted