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’m sitting here on my front porch on a gorgeous sunny September morning and having a cup of tea. I realize this is the first cup of tea I have had in several months. For me tea seems to be a more cooler weather drink then my usual morning coffee.
For many a choice of beverages is a good parallel to what sort of tools we use in our professional and personal life. For example I may use Focuswriter to write an initial blog post than import it into another application for the formatting and final editing. There are many different apps and services that can help you manage your todo list. Every single one will have fans who think it’s the perfect tool for their needs, and to them it is. Someone else may have tried the same tool and found it lacking, instead turning to another one that meets their needs.
In this way both people are happy. There is also nothing wrong with trying another tool to see if your opinion of it has changed. Like the tools, those who use them may change over time.
A personal example – Over many years I grew to become a big fan of Microsoft’s Outlook email client. I loved the way it displayed and managed several email accounts I have. When I got my first iPhone I started to use the built-in mail client and one feature I loved was a unified inbox. This allows you to view mail from multiple inboxes all in one place. Unfortunately Outlook never has had this feature.
I’ve tried several other email clients, before finally settling on Gmail through the web browser using the activeinbox plugin. With that it met the needs that I needed the most currently in my personal and professional live. If you had asked me 5 years ago if I would use gmail on the browser I would have just laughed.
Similar cases can be made in many other aspects of technology, productivity and life. Use what works for you but be open to change, both in the tools and in yourself.
Question: What tools have you changed that makes you more productive now?