“Werewolf” workday survival guide

I bet you have workdays that feel like you’re on a date with someone who didn’t disclose they’re a werewolf. You start out with nice plans, but by the end they’ve become unrecognizable and may try to kill you.

Those werewolf-workdays are where I find infinite outliner apps (especially ❤️Workflowy❤️) superior to standard to-do apps. Infinite outliners let you fluidly respond to those unexpected moments where a snarling werewolf lunges across the tablecloth:

• A family emergency arises, leaving little time for the work you were supposed to complete.
• You wake up out of a laziness-coma and realize half your day is gone.
• You realize this is a “drop everything, we have a new priority” meeting.
• A literal werewolf attacks, maybe? I don’t know where you work.

Here’s the 4 infinite outliner steps I take to survive those workdays that go from boring to terrifying:

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1) Write down what you want

Start with your ideal version of your day, just like you were actually writing down ideal attributes your date might have. I open Workflowy each morning as if it’s a diary covered in unicorn stickers, recording my dreams of a productive day.

You can even lie to yourself and believe the universe has any intention of honoring those dreams. It’s fun to do.

Here’s an example of me brain-dumping into Workflowy how my day might go, ideally:

I know that looks like something you could do in any writing/notes app. But the unique fluidity of infinite outlining will come into play soon.

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2) Sort out your day/date

This is a big strength of infinite outliners: unlike the stricter structure of to-do/project-planners, they’re easily malleable. You can re-structure activities in the order you expect to be able to handle them.

Ideally you’ll do this with an optimistic smile in spite of knowing, deep down, that nothing ever goes the way you plan. That’s how you ended up on this werewolf date in the first place, pushing aside the questions about why someone with abs is insisting they could go for another round of steaks.

Here I am roughing out the order I’ll tackle my day in, still in my idealistic unicorn stickers mode:

When you’re done, you can breathe a sigh of relief: you have a plan that signifies your ability to control the day. As long as it’s a workday with no surprises – the equivalent of your date not snapping at the waiter’s hand when the food arrives.

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3) Put on your blinders, and enjoy the da…oh god, it’s a full moon!

As with any date/workday, it’s crucial to block out as much as possible so you can focus.

Putting on blinders is also helpful for ignoring how your date just scratched their ear with their foot. And was it always so hairy?

In infinite outliners, you can give yourself focusing-in blinders by using the “zoom” or “focus” feature to hide all other parts of your outline.

I suspect that kind of focusing-in is particularly helpful in ADHD, but should be useful for anyone with an overwhelming amount of tasks and notes nagging in their periphery.

Watch me zoom into my “first thing” workblock, and then into my first task in the workblock. This a thrill ride to me after years of using flat to-do apps.

And now, our workday/date goes sour: a full moon emerges, and we’re in danger of being torn apart. Or being yelled at by our boss.

So I’m at it again with the focusing-in because I have a new focus that needs all my attention:

Unlike a traditional todo app, it’s instinctual in infinite outliners to start jotting down notes on your current task as you work on it. And when you realize a note item is significant enough to be a task of its own, you can zoom in even further:

This is my favorite part of apps like Workflowy: letting you influence the shape of your werewolf/day into the least-destructive form possible, while not tripping you up when you need to fight for your life.

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4) Survive by getting rid of the inessentials

You have to shed your idealism: getting realistic, gritting your teeth, and punting tasks until the next day. Freeing yourself up from the guilt of seeing an unfinished to-do list by proactively choosing what you won’t be doing, in light of the bad situation that’s come up.

Here I am doing just that, suppressing my Protestant Work Ethic guilt while admitting the day can barely be salvaged, and certainly not “won”. This is helped with another strength of most infinite outliner programs: being able to quickly send items somewhere else in the outline from the keyboard:

That’s me, having accepted that the day is going to look completely different than I’d hoped, but at least I ended with an Adequately Managed Werewolf.

…whatever that’s supposed to mean. This entire metaphor is bad, but it’s too late now. No refunds.

But maybe I’ve convinced you to try an infinite outliner like Workflowy for your crazier days?

And given you made it all the way to the end of this, consider my free email newsletter where I share similar productivity/procrastination tricks, with a bias towards cool Mac software for those chained to a computer all day. It goes out every month or…three:

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And thanks to pikisuperstar and juicy_pic on FreePik for the werewolf and calendar graphics I used for in that opening image.