Tools are meant to be used.
Let’s say you spend a lot of time setting up a new tool, making it look nice, and laying the groundwork for how you think you will use it. But then you don’t use the tool. You’ve wasted a lot of time.
Even if you use the tool a little but it doesn’t improve what you are doing greater than the time you put into setting up and using the tool then you are not better off.
The obvious case here is that of a flashy tool with exciting features. But if the output isn’t going to make you better, or if the necessary upkeep doesn’t fit with your workflow, you’re not going to benefit from it.
Sometimes people use the busywork of setting up and maintaining a tool as a way to avoid their real work.
Right now I’m feeling the challenge of collaboration tools. These tools are intended to improve work in which multiple team members collaborate. The challenge is that different people have different workstyles. Some prefer digital, some prefer analog. Some prefer pictures, some prefer text.
It is really tempting to set up a collaboration tool that will allow a team, a department, an organization to better work together. If you have the right tool in the right situation it can take you to a whole new level of success.
But if not…