Greg Morris

Finding A Use For Drafts App

It has been a while since I have been genuinely excited to dive into a new app. After my initial trepidation, and following the massive buzz around the 5th instalment of Drafts app, I decided to give it a chance and I am so glad I did.

I have tried Drafts 4 a few times when interesting things come up, these things more often than not involve Viticci et al discussing it’s merits. Yet for some reason I just never really ‘got it’ – it is a powerful enough app but I couldn’t find a use case for it when compared to Ulysses or Bear. After only a few hours of really using the app, and intensifying after a few days, I went though a transition that has affected my relationship with writing text altogether.

By using Drafts I no longer need to decide where the text I wish to write needs to go. Drafts has become a place for notes, reminders, blog posts and everything in between. All powered by the single biggest selling point of this app – Actions.

By building up an arsenal of actions I can now place any text I need to type down where I need it to go. Whereas previously before typing any text in I had to decide if it was a note, blog post, tweet – whatever it was – I had to spend brain power deciding where to put it. Things I need to remember when talking to someone, blog post ideas, long emails I’m mulling over, absolutely everything goes into drafts to be distributed later on.

The actions directory has provided me with a whole range of abilities, or inspiration to write my own, integrating with a huge range of services. I have an action to create a Todoist item, post to micro blog, place the front matter into my post and save to my github, and loads more. If I start a blog post now and it doesn’t quite make the mark I can post it to microblog instead. Or a short link post might turn into a full on post, I don’t need different apps doing different things any longer.

Drafts has enabled me to publish much more just by simplifying my workflow. Add this to the brilliant markdown keyboard functions, fast and fluid app and much better design, I am so happy I gave Drafts a chance. Grab it from the app store and find a use case for it, it might just change your outlook.

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