Why does your content workflow look like a child's toy box?

_{Day 128/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

Twelve months ago my content workflow looked like the inside of a toddler’s toy box: bright colours, weird noises, and nothing where it should be.

Notion? Over‑architected.
Airtable? Under‑used.
Google Docs? Landfill.
I was drowning in half‑thoughts and quarter‑drafts.

Then I watched Marie Kondo fold a T‑shirt with surgical precision and thought,

I should go and fold all my T-shirts…

And then I thought…

What if she tackled my content mess? 

I stole the spirit, built something stupid‑simple, and it works.

Marie Kondo Your Content Pile

Meet the 4‑slot Content OS - 4 jobs for your content to have (places to exist):

1. Ideation – raw brain farts only. One‑liner max.

2. Drafts in Progress – things I’m actively shaping (hard‑cap: five, or I combust).

3. Promo Paths – the distribution blueprint for each piece.

4. Repurpose Me – proven winners waiting for round two.

Penfriend watches the Doc. Move an idea from Ideation → Drafts and Penfriend auto‑spins an outline, gap analysis, and SEO skeleton before my kettle boils.

But the secret sauce sits upstream in Slack.

Slack Dumpster‑Diving (With Emoji Breadcrumbs)

One channel: #🧠‑ideas‑dump. I treat it like a compost heap — everything rots there first.

I have one slack channel where I dump everything.
And then the secret sauce to all this.

I react to it with it’s job.

Because, if you didn’t know, you can search Slack for the emoji someone reacted with to a message.

So, I just react

• 💡 random idea

• 🖼️ picture of something I like, or should draw out

• 📰for something in the news

• ✔️ when I’ve used it

• 🔥 when I think something is amazing. (It’s all of them, I am a genius)

has:reaction  in the search bar.

Slack turns from black hole to searchable goldmine.

Where Everything Goes Next

_{You’re high af if you don’t think I have a WIP version of Penfriend for help with writing my newsletter and social posts. It's coming. I gotta test these things first.}

The Results (Two‑Month Window)

• 60+ newsletters shipped on schedule

• 3× output of social posts without extra hours

• 17 legacy pieces resurrected & refreshed

• **40 % less "Where did I save that?" panic

If your content workflow feels like untangling last year’s Christmas lights, steal the emoji system, the search cheats, or the Doc itself.

Reply “spark joy” and I’ll record the process and put it in next weeks Thusday issue :D

✌️ Tim "Fold your T-shirts for better content" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. Having Penfriend.ai to do the heavy lifting for me when it comes to the blog content makes everything else so much easier.

I can focus on the bits I enjoy doing, and trust Penny to do the rest. (Because I designed her to do that…)

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.