I recently decided to replace a (digital) tool that I’ve used every day, many times a day, for years.
The outgoing tool is called Simplenote, and as the name implies it’s an ultra-simple piece of note-taking software that’s mostly defined by what it doesn’t do: it’s great for notes and other types of unstyled writing (no bold or italics, limited link-handling capabilities, etc), but it doesn’t offer anything more complex.
I ultimately decided to swap it out in favor of an app called Obsidian because the latter is more liberated in terms of styling and organization, while also remaining fairly straightforward; it offers expansion capabilities via community-made plugins, but it’s otherwise a relatively bare-basics experience, augmented with a few quality-of-life upgrades beyond what Simplenote delivers.
I still think Simplenote is great (and maybe even ideal) for a lot of purposes, but I’ve thus far been happy with my transition to a slightly more expansive note-taking tool.
That said, I waited several years to make this switch in part because software extensibility can lead to bloat and inefficiency, while also tempting users into spending more time working on the tool than its ostensible purpose.
This is similar in some ways to how a focus (or fixation) on organization and tidiness can get in the way of actually simplifying one’s life (and liberating oneself to focus on what’s most vital), because the tools (which may be labels and boxes, or may be approaches, habits, and systems) that were meant to help us eschew the superfluous become ends unto themselves, rather than means to an end.
We can become obsessed with our tools, optimizing, hardening, and polishing them so that we have little time, energy, or attention left to spend on the things they were meant to help us achieve.
This isn’t an inherently negative thing! There are so many useful bits of advice, clever systems, and valuable implements on the market because interested people invest themselves in refining these utilities.
When we tell ourselves we’re sharpening our knives so we can become better chefs, but then never get around to cooking, however—that’s an issue.
There’s something latently compelling and appealing about tools. They imply potential and capacity, and because of how they’re marketed (as products or systems) it can feel like we’re imbued with those benefits simply by owning them, or just by arranging our lives in accordance with their tenets.
I hesitated to replace my ultra-streamlined note-taking platform with a more capable and expandable version of the same because of this human propensity to get lost in the luster of our tools.
I worried that I would get so caught up in the tool itself, fiddling with all the fun new functions and customizing it to the point of preoccupation, that I would neglect to use it for its intended purpose: jotting and organizing notes.
I’m enjoying my upgraded note-taking experience so far, but I think it’s prudent to be aware of this potential source of focal derailment, perhaps especially for those of us who really like making things and for whom tools therefore represent fresh opportunities and refined capabilities.
There’s a thin line beyond prudently sharpening our knives and forgetting to cook because of endless hours invested in knife-maintenance, paging through knife catalogs, and watching eye-straining durations of knife-centric YouTube videos.
Working on our tools can feel like doing the work, but past a certain point that’s seldom the case.
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