Fiddling with my setup and automations
Scott Nesbitt writing on his blog about Jumping Between Tools “It often starts with frustrations and complaints, minor or not, about one tool and how it’s not meeting their needs. Even though they’ve been using that tool for more than a little while — sometimes for months, often for years. Then they latch on to one or two other pieces of software or services. There’s a short, enjoyable honeymoon period when the novelty of something new is still novel. Once that honeymoon period ends, and it usually does, they invariably find fault in the new, shiny bauble and eventually go back to the tool that they originally complained about.
Personal restlessness also plays a role. Some people just get bored with what they’re using — familiarity breeding contempt, and all that. They want something fresher, something newer. They want something that simplifies their work. They want something that’s, in their opinion, better. So, they chase after the apps that they read about in their favourite blogs or hear about in their favourite podcasts or see demonstrated on their favourite YouTube channel. Apps that are breathlessly touted as having made those bloggers or podcasters or YouTubers smarter, more productive, better informed, more attractive, kinkier. The prevailing thought is that If it worked for those luminaries, it’ll work for me. Right?
Or they latch on to something new because it’s hyped as the latest and greatest in its space. Whatever space that may be. An app or service or tool that makes its predecessors and competition obsolete. One that promises [fill-in-the-blank] nirvana. Or the grasp at the new because its marketing team has set up a slick website which extols the virtues of newfangled features like an advanced knowledge graph or being powered by AI or some such. All of that can seem interesting at first glance. In the grander scheme of things, though, all of that is useless or unnecessary frill and frippery.
The online hype machine — fueled by blogs and podcasts and YouTube channels and marketing departments — generates more than a bit of FOMO. The hype machine plants the seeds that cause some folks to start thinking that if they don’t jump on the new bandwagon, they’ll forfeit that one chance to become great. That one chance to unleash the genius or productivity that lies inside of all of us. That if they don’t, they’ll suffer in their careers and their education and in their personal lives.
In the end, the switch bears few or no results. The switch has an often short shelf life, and the people making the switch return to what they were using before. After periods of exploration they come back to where began. Or somewhere close to it. Then the cycle continues anew a few weeks or a few months later. Generally with the same results.”[…]
“When you jump between tools, you often wind up wasting time trying to shoehorn an ingrained way of working into a structure that doesn’t suit that way of working. A structure around which that new tool is built. It slows you down and exposes the weaknesses (at least as far as your needs go) of that tool. And, like so many others in the same digital boat, you wind up going back to what were using previously.
All of that leaves you wondering why you tried to make a switch in the first place. Because, sometimes, better is what’s always been in front of you.”
I’m frequently fiddling with my RSS and read-later apps. I’ll try different combinations of NetNewsWire, Reeder, Instapaper Goodlinks, and Matter. You name it I’ve tried it. What a fucking waste of time because I always end up back to Reeder for RSS and Instapaper for read-later. I also fiddle with my writing and notes workflows. Stop it already!
Originally published at http://ldstephens.net on January 16, 2023.
