First I have a few project files. In particular I have a big “Todo.bike” file that I use to track Bike’s development. This file is pretty strait forward, an outline + notes of what I want to work on related to Bike. Some of my inspired headings are “Big Features”, “Little Features”
I don’t open this file everyday, but I review it periodically. Add new stuff. Delete out of date stuff. Etc.
The second way that I use Bike is as a text scratch pad for thinking through ideas. I use it this way most of the time. It’s quite messy. Basically I just have a bunch of untitled autosaved outlines that are always slowly going out of date or into messiness. When I have a flash of inspiration and want to work through some ideas I’ll just create a new document, and start. I like the empty page.
Eventually if there’s anything in these scratch files that I actually want to keep I’ll copy into a project specific file, such as my Todo.bike.
I think a lot of people are a bit more organized when using Bike, but this is how I use it.
I use it as an outliner for my novel writing. Sometimes, I even do entire chapters in it because I love how writing feels inside the app. I use .txt for the outline because I sync it with Ulysses.
Other than that, I’m kind of like Jesse above. I use it as a scratchpad to develop and structure ideas. I’m hoping that once filtering and iOS support are introduced, I’ll be able to use it for much more than that, one of which is replacing a gigantic novel project file that I currently run in Taskpaper.
I just wanted to drop in here and mention that I finished the first draft of my debut fantasy novel today, thanks in large part also to Bike. It was instrumental in developing ideas, outlining, even writing whole chapters. I’m so glad I found this tool and really hope it sticks also as a long-form writing instrument for others.
