The tools we use, shape us

I'm a big believer that our surroundings form us, and either charge us up with energy, or suck the energy from us. And that's also true for the tools we use every day.

Form and function must come hand-in-hand. Alone, either becomes frustrating, but if you strike the right balance the result is a tool that empowers you and fills you with delight. This is the case for physical tools — the right desk chair will serve you well from a functional point of view and fill you with admiration of its form every time you touch it. The small but important decisions made by the designers make it so great to use.

It's also true for digital tools. Software that frustrates you — no matter how powerful it is — will limit your ability. Instead of amplifying you, it distracts and frustrates you.

In many ways, I refuse to use software that I feel frustrates me or sucks my energy. I have quite a short attention span and become frustrated very easily. If I am frustrated, the quality of my work/interactions suffers. So for me, the statement above is exponentially true.

Writing and friction

The more I've progressed in my career — and the more the whole industry changed — the more important async and written communication has become. However, the tools available to do this were extremely frustrating to use, specifically for my 'on the go' lifestyle. They were also horrible when it came to expressing my digital identity.

There's just tremendous noise in modern text editors, and the output — despite the significant customization capabilities in these tools — is very hard to control.

I was frustrated by the process of collecting, expressing and sharing my thoughts. I was constantly distracted, often feeling like I was fighting a sluggish, complex tool, bloated with unnecessary features for my needs. And at the same time, I felt extremely unsatisfied with how the output represented me as an author.

This friction was at its highest on touch devices, where we're used to tools that are flawlessly executed by the best engineers in the world, like Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Comparing our d2d tools to these just made it painfully clear how bad existing solutions actually were.

Complexity and power

For a while I thought too much complexity was the main issue and that tools needed to be more single-purpose so I started using minimal tools which were very limited. While getting started in these tools was easier, the frustrations started popping up very quickly. The lack of capabilities quickly became a blocker, and I couldn't continue to use these tools after a certain level of depth and complexity, which I hit quite early in my workflow.

So I understood there is a reason for complexity, but it has to be adaptive, and only visible when needed, instead of constantly distracting you.

Our digital output is our digital identity

Just like the clothes we wear or the car we drive, our digital output becomes an expression of ourselves. People judge by appearances in our digital world; how well the content is structured, how good the visuals look, etc. These things amplify or detract from your message and identity. Great tools help you amplify your message, instead of detracting from it.