What works for one does not work for all... at least, that's the theory

I was thinking about how the development of the writing process happens.

Word clouds - going from big world to little world, or various techniques of note taking.

It still remains "what works for me" in a lot of cases, depending on who you ask. I spoke with a writer who says that he has a single word that he writes on a piece of paper, then asks himself how to build an entire story around that world. Sounds freaky, but when you read his material, he creates a complex environment based on his method. But that works for him, not so much me.

Another writer I know hasn't written anything except dialogue for his stories, then creates the narrative around it. He said that the dialogue creates the narrative in a way that if he built the two together, it wouldn't work as a first draft.

I take a lot of notes with my work. A lot of them. Sometimes it is an idea, a lot of conversational bits that I hear from people that I like, and several tidbits of information. These notes, I put into one large file, and when I feel it is ready, I make it into a story. Some of the stuff fits, the other stuff that doesn't gets discarded. After I re-write the story once, I then go section by section, remove any uninteresting whole segments, and try to rebuild a more interesting, coherent story that really moves.

Everybody is different. I am no exception in that. But it's what works for me. I am curious what works for other people.