HackMake

Michael at Better Mess, talking about tools:

The right applications can help you mitigate several of your own shortcomings or enhance your strengths, but their potential will only ever be realized if they are coupled with the right systems and methodologies. Sadly, finding the right tools is a process that takes time and often includes several wrong turns, but when the endgame is a unified workflow, I believe that any time wasted is time well spent.

I don’t agree that any time wasted pursuing productivity is time well spent, but that’s not his main point. What he’s saying is, it’s not about the software, it’s about your methods and those can take time, commitment, and investment to develop.

I also like his point on the community of productivity:

For those of you who read our sites (or any site that touches on productivity for that matter) and get caught up in the newest tricks and the latest app, try to take a step back from what we’re talking about in the minute and really look at what we’re trying to accomplish for ourselves in aggregate. We may talk about things one thing at a time, but that’s only because creating your own ideal workflow is overwhelming. The best sites and the brightest minds that I see writing about productivity today aren’t trying to steer you towards a new app. They aren’t advocating an app-driven approach to better work, they’re creating and sharing their workflow.

I sometimes am discouraged about the “productivity” racket—and myself being a part of it—but from a higher altitude, this community is working together, “in aggregate”, to move the methodologies forward that help us do stuff and be better people.

That’s worth investing in.