'Work Processing' in Dropbox Paper

[stoweboyd]

Paper is today's best example of 'work processing' -- managing the state and particulars of on-going work activities -- within the context of documents, as opposed to traditional task management or project management tools. The term is taken from 'word processing', and intentional suggests a new day for documents.

The flexibility and fluidity of Paper's approach to managing native information, embedding content in various media from outside sources, and the rich task model provided by Paper represents the next generation of how individuals, teams, and organizations will stay on top of work. 

There's more to build out, but Paper is a giant step forward from the early days of cloud documents and file-sync-and-share. 

#Paperusecase 

[AlexisL]

Hi @stoweboyd! What an exciting perspective on Paper and the concept of work processing. Thank you for sharing!

We'd love to learn more about how Paper and work processing fit into your day to day. What type of industry or team do you work in and how has Paper specifically helped you evolve your work beyond the early days of cloud documents?

[stoweboyd]

I am a researcher, analyst, and writer. I tried work processing with Dropbox Paper for several months. However, I migrated to a different collection of tools -- a not totally satisfactory solution -- principally because I wanted to be able to share the tasks embedded in the documents with others. As a result, I am using an integration of Evernote with Todoist, mediated by sync technology from Pleexy. But, as a result, I can assign a task created in a document but synced in Todoist to a contributor. And when they check it off in their Todoist, it is updated in my Evernote document.

I would much rather use Dropbox Paper in this system, however, in place of Evernote.

[stoweboyd]

fixed.

[AlexisL]

Hi @stoweboyd ! The additional context is helpful. When you say, "fixed" in your most recent comment, what are you referring to specifically? 

Also, I wonder if there's a way to revisit Paper as a tool for the workflows you describe, since you seem to be so passionate about Paper. When you say you're interested in sharing tasks, are you referring specifically to sharing or to task assignments? I'll be happy to help you explore some options from there. 

[stoweboyd]

I dropped Evernote/Todoist and moved onto Dropbox Paper. Although I can't share a single task (as in Todoist) I have shifted to managing my work in small, topical files so that I can share those with various individuals.

Would still be great if individual tasks could be shared.

Re 'fixed' -- I made a typo in an earlier comment. Not important.

[stoweboyd]

PS My discussion of 'work processing' will soon be published in a Gigaom report, vol 3 of the State of Work Technologies 2019. Pass my deets along to the Dropbox AR folks!

[AlexisL]

How exciting, @stoweboyd ! Please follow up with us here in the community to share the report!