You should learn to adapt your workflows

I stumbled upon a blogpost from 2020 about why we need to build tools around workflows and not the contrary.

After a first read of the title, I had a reflection and thought this assumption was quite powerful.

As the author wrote :

The Eureka moment that some of us feel when we finally find a notes app or todo system that fits our brains – that epiphany happens when the tools we use mirror the way our minds work, and how we want to move information through our lives. Good tools fit perfectly around our workflows, bad tools don’t.

But finally, I reconsidered my perspective for 3 reasons:

1) Your workflow might not be the best way to do things

First, by assuming you need to build tools around workflows and not build workflows around tools, we create an assumption that our workflows are the best way to do things. The joy you can feel when you find a tool that fits the way your mind works is, clearly, big andIi do understand that this feeling is precious. It also can be really frustrating to use tools that are built in a way that is not fit for you.

But, let’s be honest : sometimes you can find a new tool and improve your workflow because of the features of this new tool. For me, the epiphany came from the improvement of my workflow. I learned new things and new tools to improve my workflow or to build one.

I used a lot of note-taking apps for years and tested the big player apps. I can find some exciting features on Evernote, Google Note, Notion, OneNote, you name it. But I was constrained by the workflow and actually by the lack of workflow. In Fall 2024, I dug into the Zettelkasten method and I discovered a compelling workflow to take notes.

It was clear that if I was not improving my workflow, I’d still be looking for new apps to fit “my workflow” and would still be disappointed.

The fact is that it was not the tools that were weak but my workflow. If you assume that your workflow can evolve and improve, you place yourself in a curious and discovery position that helps you to grab pieces of information to tweak your workflow and make it better.

If I only build tools adapted to my workflow, I’d be still stuck with apps without workflow and guidance.

2) It does not allow you to discover new things

Consequently, assuming your workflow might evolve and can be better, you are naturally open to new things. You are looking at others’ workflows, other people’s ideas etc.. You place yourself as a treasure hunter. You know you can find something and you don’t know what and when. Therefore, you consume a lot of information and this information enriches your thinking but also your workflow. You discover a feature that you can integrate into your workflow. Or you think you can dig deeper into something and finally find a mind blasting way to do things you did previously in a different way.

To keep the Zettelkasten example, I fell down the rabbit hole of “note taking”. I did not read everything and I know I have plenty to read but I was starving to better grasp the nuances of the Zettelkasten and I discovered other things to wrap my emerging workflow such as a sorting method for my notes (PARA method) and I mixed the Zettelkasten and the PARA method to build my own workflow. Actually I experienced a lot of pleasure from using this method regardless of the tools I used. Again, I accepted to adapt my workflow.

3) Tools evolve with technology

The last reason is tools evolve with technology. If you are not open minded and open to use new tools, you can miss opportunities to improve your workflow. You need to accept your workflow can evolve by looking at others’ workflows but also at new tools. Because these tools are built by people who think and reflect about workflows that might be different from yours. It’s a virtuous circle.

As a young lawyer, I took the habit of writing all the things I thought useful for my practice into an A4 notebook. For the first year, I might have had 2 or 3 notebooks full of notes, tips and other relevant or irrelevant information. Without mentioning all the notes i wrote on free sheets I stacked in a box near my desk… It was 2014 and now, in 2025, it looks like the caveman age for me. I do not understand how i did not use a digital note-taking app immediately for that, because, you can imagine how these “physical notes” were absolutely not usable. I mean, I had to remember what i wrote and in which notebook, have this notebook close to me when i needed it and find the information in this notebook… No need to tell you that these notebooks were buried in dust in a drawer rapidly.

If I hadn’t evolved my tools, I would still be using pen and paper for my note taking. Now, I’m using a note-taking app with a cloud sync feature that allows me to write and read my notes everywhere. I have a search function for stuff I am looking for and my workflow helps me to build a habit to sort my notes according to the PARA method which helps me to find easily the information I need (organize information by projects and goals not by subjects).