Let’s Talk About Tools
This Just In: There’s no single tool that can do everything and it’s extremely frustrating.
I’m currently evaluating productivity and contact center tools for work. To make a long and technical story very short, we acquired companies and now have a ton of different tools that all do the same thing. To try and consolidate, I’ve been evaluating different options that claim to be an “all-in-one” business solution. Spoiler alert, that’s not exactly true.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of very cool tools on the market. One of the systems I’m evaluating is contact center or phone providers. We’ve come a long way from the days when phones were needed at every desk. Now, everything is an app that aims to “do it all.” You can call, sure, but you can also interact through text or chat or Facebook Messenger if you want. And with the power of voice recognition and AI, the system can give you suggestions on how to handle the conversation.
All of this is very cool, but it doesn’t exactly “do it all.” Each system has one strange quark or limitation or omission that requires another tool from a different provider. Those other tools, of course, also claim to “do it all” but, too, fall just short. A scheduling link provider I’m evaluating, for example, doesn’t let you share calendars with teammates, which seems kind of important.
What results is a frustrating proposition: combining a bunch of tools that are all really good but not exceptional. It also means there is not one app to rule them all, no matter how fancy the marketing.
This issue is true in the writing world, too. No writing app is truly perfect. iA Writer comes close, but it is not my favorite implementation for long-term storage and backup. Obsidian is excellent in that regard, but I don’t enjoy writing in the app.
Writers often fall into the trap of searching for the perfect writing app, the perfect organizational system, the perfect app that will do everything in a simple but beautiful way.
In reality, that magical Goldilocks app does not exist. It’s not possible because every person wants something slightly different out of their tools. No app can be perfect for everyone.
Instead, writers should pick something close and live with it. We spend so much time evaluating tools or moving to new systems that could be spent writing or editing or doing literally anything else.
The revised second edition of Write Now, available for pre-order on Kindle and scheduled for release in paperback on August 27, eliminates any recommendations for specific tools. Even what I suggest changes over time as tools update or make standard features cost more.
To counter this and attempt to make the book a bit more evergreen, I’ve added a Recommended Tools section to my website. It has a list of what I currently use and recommend today. If I switch platforms or tools in the future, I’ll update that page.
What is your favorite writing tool out there right now?
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