The Way We Think About Productivity Tools Is Broken
We’re used to using productivity tools to help us get more out of our day. Online calendars, task lists and emails all make up large parts of our systems. But they way we think about them is broken.
How We Think Of Productivity Tools
For many years, we have approached productivity tools as things associated with a fixed place. You have a computer at the office. You have one at home. You have files at the office. You have another set at home. Your work email is on your work computer, along with your work tasks. Ditto for home.
And it truly used to be this way. Before the advent of cell phones, we could only make calls when we were in a place with a phone, e.g. home or the office. Before the invention of mobile computing, we could only type documents when in front of a computer. Before the arrival of email on our phones, we could only answer and send email when we were in front of the computer.
In the past, productivity tools were consigned to a specific physical place, or a “context” as David Allen* would put it.
Why It’s Broken
But this is no longer the case. We have email on our phones, on our tablets, on our ebook readers. We have the ability to type up documents anywhere we have mobile computing – even with our cell phones.
Yet even with this, most of us still haul reference files back and forth from place to place, instead of leaving them in the cloud. Or we print things out so that we have hard copies of them to refer to in meetings, or when we are not where our email is.
Tools are no longer limited to a specific place. Thinking of them in the old way is simply broken.
Sadly, many productivity tools are still made in the old way of thinking – they are only available in certain physical locations.
The New Way To Think Of Productivity Tools
Because tools don’t have to be limited by a certain physical space, we should take care to choose tools that support this new way of working.
Why have an email program that only works on your home computer? Instead choose one that works everywhere you are.
Why have access to files only on your work computer? Put files in a trusted place that you can access from the web.
Why have access to word processing software only on one computer? Choose software and file storage that you can access no matter where you are.
Stop using the broken way of looking at productivity tools. Find a way that you can take advantage of the new generation…and get access no matter where you are.
Your assignment: look at the things that you haul back and forth with you every day. Are any of them because you are stuck in the old way of looking at tools? If so, find a better tool that gives you access no matter where you are.
Image by V31S70. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text Added.
