Cool tools
State of the art, for the time. (Aalto University Commons)
I'm a lot more high maintenance than I used to be.
I used to just need my laptop. Now, I need my laptop, plus my glasses. And my ergonomic laptop stand. And the light that makes me look less haggard on Zoom calls.
And then, since my laptop is up off of my desk, I need a separate keyboard and mouse, plus wrist rests.
That's leaving aside, for now, my special notebooks and pens. And all of the various apps that I used to live without, and yet somehow, now, can't live without.
On the one hand, I know that, strictly speaking, I don't need most of these things. If I really had to, I could run my entire business from an iPad or an old Chromebook. If it came down to it, I could make do with substandard tools and cut most of the apps I use on a regular basis.
On the other hand, each of these tools has had a positive influence on my work habits and output. The best tools help me to see new possibilities. They actually change the way I operate. Before I had my old 27" monitor, it would never have occurred to me to reference, say, a spreadsheet and document at the same time. On a smaller screen, you just live with toggling back and forth. Now, I take advantage of the side-by-side workflow even on my 13" laptop.
Thus, even though I don't need to have a specific tool in order to function, I benefit from not only having these tools, but having had them.
I want to avoid the weakness that comes from needing specific tools. I want to always be flexible and versatile, able to make do with less than ideal circumstances and equipment. However, I want the growth that comes from incorporating new ideas and optimizing accordingly. Ironically, the ability to build on new ideas is the very skill that allows me to be successful no matter what my situation I find myself in.
Recently, a friend of mine performed on the guitar at an outdoor wedding. A February afternoon in Georgia can range from thirty degrees to eighty, and this one was smack dab in the middle with a cold wind blowing. My friend's fingers were freezing, the song she was playing song wasn't highly adaptable to the guitar, and the sound person seemed new at his job.
My friend made it work — hundreds of nights of performing in pit orchestras will give you that type of resilience under difficult conditions. However, if she had never played guitar under ideal conditions with a beautiful and familiar instrument that made tricky chord changes feel like slicing through hot butter, there would have been little incentive to have become a professional guitarist in the first place. If every practice and performance were as difficult as that outdoor wedding, she would likely have quit. There is an important balance to be found between having the right tools and having the willingness to let go of them when necessary.
Getting nerdy about this stuff can be fun. You can go down the rabbit hole of designing your own custom mechanical keyboard, trying out different switches and investing in keycaps in every color of the rainbow. You can spend hundreds of hours reading reviews of different mascaras and trying dozens.
And some of what you find will absolutely make a difference. The right drug at the right time can save a life.
However, some of what you find is a distraction or a place to hide.
How do we know whether we're looking for magic or simply looking to enhance that which we already have? I think it comes down to this: Am I willing to do the work in the meantime? Can I still wash the dishes even if I don't have the special soap and the special scrubby sponge?
Until we have a tool that prevents procrastination or yields wonderful creative ideas, we've got to solve those tricky problems ourselves. And we can do that, today, with the resources we already have. We can use cool tools to grease the wheels and make the basics easier, but the ingenuity, determination, and persistence will still have to come from us.
