How Jack Maughan Uses Workflowy To Do Physics, and Run Faster

Meet Jack Maughan, a driven PhD student in physics navigating the complex intersection of biology and chemistry. Four years ago, in the middle of the chaos of experiments, projects, and personal activities, Jack found himself struggling with the age-old challenge of staying organized and on top of his endless responsibilities.

While searching for tools to help him manage his PhD workload, Jack stumbled upon Workflowy, and everything started to click. Workflowy quickly became Jack’s secret weapon for managing his PhD, cultivating good habits, pursuing his passions, and more.

In this post, we’ll dive into Jack’s inspiring story of how he has leveraged Workflowy to optimize his life and work. From managing the complexity of his research to ensuring he never misses a beat in his personal development, Jack shows us how it’s done.

Taming the Chaos of a Busy Life

As a PhD student immersed in the complex world of physics, biology and chemistry, Jack’s life overflows with experiments, data analysis, papers, and projects. Layer on top of that his passion for running, music, and writing, and you have a recipe for overwhelm.

In the past, important tasks and ideas would get lost in the shuffle, slipping through the cracks of whatever improvised system Jack used at the time. He needed a way to capture and track everything from big project milestones to small personal todos in a single trusted place.

But more than that, Jack needed a system that matched his unique way of thinking and working. He experimented with paper lab notebooks, but found them cumbersome and unfit for his needs. He used Trello for a while, but quickly bumped up against the limitations of that as well.

Most of all, he needed a system he could trust and stick with, something that would help him tame the chaos and feel on top of the growing pile of responsibilities and interests competing for his time and attention.

Falling in Love with Flexibility

Then in 2020, Jack moved everything over to Workflowy and never looked back. The infinite bullet list structure immediately clicked for him.

“It fits my brain in a way and allowed me to kind of split things up and go into more detail in a way that I really, really liked that I always had myself wanting for in Trello.”

The ability to easily hide and reveal complexity, mirror information across lists, and tag items proved invaluable for Jack’s needs. Workflowy rapidly became the hub for organizing every aspect of his life.

This screenshot shows how Jack uses the Dashboard view to get an overview of all the important areas of his Workflowy. Note: Dashboards are a beta feature, and need to be enabled to use.

The infinite canvas provided room for Jack’s thoughts to breathe and evolve, while the streamlined interface kept distractions at bay. Workflowy became a trusted companion, always ready to accept a new idea, task, or project.

With Workflowy as his digital second brain, Jack found he could offload the mental burden of remembering and organizing. He could trust that every important thought, task, and piece of information was safely captured, just a few clicks away.

Keeping His PhD on Track

Each week, Jack breaks down his work into actionable steps in Workflowy.

“I’ll come in on a Monday or Sunday, I’ll make my weekly plan, I’ll drag everything up from the previous week that hasn’t been done, and just organize it into ‘by date’ when I need to do it.”

Within these weekly plans, Jack nests subtasks, notes, and key details under each main todo. This allows him to quickly capture ideas and information in context without disrupting his workflow.

For longer-term projects like papers and his thesis, Jack relies on Workflowy’s expanding and collapsing ability to continuously refine his work.

“For large big ticket items that obviously are taking longer like papers and thesis…. I have sub bits of the stuff that I need to actually do in it. So again, you kind of drill down further experiments, all of this sort of stuff…”

Workflowy also lets Jack to easily capture and find information he needs to reference later, from experimental protocols to meeting notes. Features like search, tags, and mirroring make retrieving this knowledge frictionless.

“I’ll occasionally use it for actual primary data collection. So like say for this here, I do have the data that I took in the lab. Instead of taking it down a notebook, I have it straight here. So then when I go home to the laptop, I can just pull it up and stick into Excel or whatever I need to use to plot it.”

Having everything in one place has the added benefit that it keeps Jack accountable and on track. This also lets his supervisors check his work at any time.

“They can come in at any point… my supervisors have access to this. They can come in and they can see what I was doing in like the first week.”

Screenshot showing where Jack organizes all his PhD related information.

By carefully tracking his work in Workflowy, Jack creates a comprehensive record of his PhD journey. From his daily todos to his high level plans and idea. It’s become the backbone of his productivity system, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Supercharging His Habits and Personal Growth

Jack has harnessed Workflowy’s power to cultivate transformative habits and accelerate his personal development. At the heart of this lies his daily habit tracker – a curated list of behaviors he aims to master, from the mundane to the profound.

Each day, Jack logs his progress, savoring the dopamine hit of checking off completed tasks. This simple practice keeps him laser focused and accountable.

“I have fully let myself be hooked into the dopamine hit of marking something off… I know it’s a little addiction and a little compulsion, but I mean, it works. So it’s one that I’m happy to have.”

The impact has been profound. Workflowy’s irresistible allure of an empty checkbox has helped Jack stay consistent with life changing habits like gratitude journaling, rehab exercises, and stretching routines.

But Jack’s growth goes beyond habits. Each night, he pens a gratitude journal entry in Workflowy, capturing life’s blessings and connecting with his past self.

“Looking back at stuff from like a difficult time personally or something like that is remarkable. It really actually gives you a connection with your past self and then kind of tying into the planning and allows you to get a kind of view of your future self too.”

By leveraging Workflowy to build key habits, reflect deeply, and intentionally architect his life, Jack has unlocked a powerful flywheel of personal growth. The app has become a catalyst, propelling him towards the best version of himself.

Capturing musical inspiration whenever it strikes

As a musician and writer, Workflowy has become an indispensable tool for capturing and nurturing his creativity, ensuring that no spark of inspiration get lost in the chaos of his busy life.

“I use it just for writing, like a lot of it is writing lyrics, but also just recording chords and stuff like that…” 

Workflowy’s frictionless interface lets Jack quickly jot down a melody, some lyrics, or a chord progression the moment it strikes him.

This instant access proves crucial for Jack, as ideas often come to him when he’s out and about, away from his instruments or notebooks.

“I’ll often just be writing these… I typically don’t bring a notebook because they drive me mad if I do leave them somewhere and I have some sort of idea. But I always have my phone on me, like, if I don’t have my phone, I don’t have a notebook, basically.”

When working on a song, Jack might start with a top level bullet for the song title, then nest sub bullets for lyrics, choruses, and bridge. Under each of those, he can quickly capture more lyrics, chord changes, and other notes. This allows him to progressively iterate on the song structure without losing sight of the big picture.

Workflowy’s flexibility also allows Jack to easily rearrange sections, experiment with different lyrics or progressions, and see the evolution of a piece over time

Running Faster and Accelerating Recovery

As a passionate runner, Jack has found Workflowy to be an indispensable tool for planning, tracking, and optimizing his training. Jack has essentially created a robust system that keeps him accountable, helps him avoid overtraining, and ultimately supports his performance goals.

At the center of Jack’s running workflow sits his training plan. Each week, he carefully maps out his runs, cross-training, and recovery days in Workflowy.

“I’ve used it just to make sure I don’t miss races, to roughly track mileage, to keep myself accountable. Did I actually do that run?”

This screenshot shows what a single week of Jack’s training plan looks like.

The ability to easily rearrange workouts, add notes, and check off completed sessions helps Jack stay on track and adapt to the inevitable curveballs of training.

Workflowy has become a comprehensive training log, allowing him to record key details about each run, from distance and pace to how he felt and what he learned. This granular tracking is particularly valuable as Jack navigates the challenges of energy availability and overtraining.

“I know exactly what I ate three weeks ago, which is incredibly useful as an athlete who’s been dealing with energy availability issues.”

By diligently logging his food intake alongside his training, Jack can spot patterns, make informed adjustments, and optimize his fueling strategy to support his running.

Crafting a Life of Clarity, Focus, and Momentum

Throughout our conversation, it’s become clear that Workflowy has had a profound impact on Jack’s life. This deceptively simple tool has become the backbone of his productivity system, helping him juggle the endless responsibilities of his PhD, personal growth, creative pursuits, and athletic endeavors.

“I think personally, it’s been really useful for that sort of accountability, tracking and planning, which I realize is delightfully vague. But yeah, it’s streamlined all of those in its own way for me.”

By intentionally crafting his Workflowy to mirror his mental models and support his goals, Jack has achieved a profound synergy. Workflowy has become an extension of his mind, a trusted system that not only manages the logistics of his life, but also nurtures his growth and creativity.

The beauty of Jack’s approach lies in the fact that, while deeply personal, the core principles are universally applicable. By thoughtfully leveraging digital tools to support our goals, we can all cultivate greater clarity, focus, and momentum in our lives and work.

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