In this blog post, I want to share a different “behind the scene” look at how I process information that will eventually give birth to a new blog post. It’s a bit different than the one I publish from time to time about my blogger workflow. This behind-the-scenes view emphasizes something vital to me: the process. Sure, the results are always important, but the process that leads to these results is equally important. Moreover, tools are involved in each process, which, for a blogger and writer like me, are applications and services. I often think that I love creating because I usually love to use tools in general, especially if they are well crafted. For example, the act of writing in a great writing app like Ulysses is a satisfying experience. So. let’s see how I do all this.

In general, my inspiration comes from my readings and my time spent on Inoreader. Each morning, I spend between thirty and ninety minutes doing just that: consuming content from many sources like RSS feeds, Reddit, etc. I do spend time on YouTube, but I’m mostly reading stuff. I spend less than 10% of my time on video consumption. I force myself into reading; it’s one of the best ways to find subjects to write about or get new post ideas. There is too much content available online; I do have to use applications to bookmark things to read later. For that, Inoreader and Anybox (review of Anybox here) help me bookmark articles on which I want to react or write in a very short time frame.

When I write, depending on the expected length, complexity or destination of the piece, I may write it down directly on Micro.blog or use their macOS application which is good enough. When I plan to publish on my main blog, I’ll go with Ulysses, which is the case for this current blog post.

Another important tool that I use is Craft. This application is a repository for many things like future articles in the research phase. I do use Anybox to collect all the pieces that will go in a future issue of my Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter. Craft will support my writing process as I can reuse tidbits of information that I saved in there for longer posts. The more I use Craft, the more I depend on it for everything. This is why Craft has a special place in the following diagram, showing how all the pieces fit together. Finally, all references to my posts on Micro.blog are stored in Google Sheets so I can easily refer to and include them while writing. It’s a time saver.

My information processing workflow.

I guess my process has nothing really special, but it is perfectly crafted for my needs. I do publish a lot, and I need to be as efficient as possible, and this process enables and supports it every day.