Looking for the “Just Right” solution
When it comes to choosing something important or meaningful, by instinct we are comparing options we had. Why?
Why are we comparing our options? Why don’t we just ask others to choose it for us? Why don’t we just pick the first that comes to our eyes?
Imagine you are about to buy a new car, an apartment, or even your next new phone. There are always options with their own pros and cons. So, How?
How do we compare our options? How we manage to choose on of the options we had?
When buying a new car we will look for a few car within the same league we aim. There are people who would buy car that is popular, also there are people that would buy the car that fits their character.
Those who buy the car that is popular would take a look at their friends or spend more times looking other on the road. But those who buys a car that fit their character would consider the car comfortness, power, look, and other features that are right for his/her usage.
Looking at this phenomena as an IT enthusiast in this information era, I’m starting to see that our process of comparison is always based on information or at least we try to.
Wouldn’t we felt wrong when we choose thing blindly?
Born and raised here in Indonesia, there is a common phrase here that says.
“Beli kucing dalam karung” — “Buying a cat in sack”
It describes the act buying something without knowing what’s inside. So, this might be a thing.
It’s just like buying a new car
How choosing an IT solution is just like choosing a car we’d buy
Back in my last year in university, looking at local SME’s phenomenon on how they are starting to adapt technologies for their business made wonders me and my friend.
There are restaurants using custom apps to manage dine in orders, imagine the waiters comes to you with iPod touch then listen and talks to you while tapping your order to the systems. But there is also similar business that only uses pen and papers to run their business.
So I and my friend started to spend our spare time talking to those SME’s and even sometimes that talking turns to project. That projects help them choose and design solutions for them.
Just like the car choosing scenario, they know that they need some IT solution to grow their business but they don’t know what and how to. This makes they use solutions that is not enough or even too much.
Choosing a car consider the usage needs, expected lifetime, and budget allocated. That makes us wanted to know durability, comfortability, power, pricing, and a bunch more information and recommendations.
Choosing IT solutions isn’t differ much from choosing a car. We need to consider the problem or needs, expected ROI, and of course budget allocated for it. While we wanted to know the robustness, capacity, features, ease of use, pricing, and also recommendations from others.
Choosing IT Solutions in our daily life
a simple case on me looking for images for this article
At first, I don’t know why I put the image of a guy pointing a lamp. But then, Iread that image get more attention than the text. So, you probably aren’t reading this part of writing.
Now I know that I need to put some image or photos here in this article to give accent to this writing. Then I started to look for choices.
First, I see that I can take a shot myself, or get image online (buy or look for open licensed). When I have those options I am comparing those options by the time needed to get the picture, budget I need to spend, and the image quality I’m looking for.
Now that I have my criteria, I need to get the data to fulfill the information I need to choose. Creating my own image would cost me nothing (assuming that I can use my iPhone, or just borrow DSLR from a friend), since I’m not a photographer it may take a while for me to get ideas, objects, and an environment to get the image. Besides, I wont guarantee myself on having great images within days (with a bunch of trials and errors).
Getting images online might be the shortest solution for me. Image is basically an addition to this article, so I may not spend more time on images than writing right? Now the only consideration is the budget and quality Iwould get from it. Since this article is not for a commercial purpose (sure, I don’t get any money from this haha) my choice is to get the image with a free license and I might just donate them for a coffee or two.
I’ve chosen my solution now I’m doing it “getting the image”. Just spend minutes searching at https://search.creativecommons.org/ that sends me to https://pixabay.com/ then I am faced with a few creative commons licensed photos, within minutes I put those photos here in this article :)
The case on managing our daily tasks
OK, done with my simple case on finding images. Now, we are on to a real daily problem that we all might struggle with. Task Management, yes this topic is frequently discussed especially when it calls you with the word “productivity” which basically told you to just do things you need to do, and don’t do or hold the things that aren’t important.
I won’t discuss the task management itself, but here let’s see and compare the right tools and media used to do task management for us.
Here are a few of problems we might share on tasks management :
- Hard to remember the task (we are often to forget tasks assigned earlier)
- Too much tasks
- Tasks are uncategorized
So, now we have some needs or we might say this is our goal of finding the right tools and media to help us manage our tasks. Of course, those goals are to find the tools that :
- Reminds us our task
- Help us monitor our tasks
- Categorize our tasks
Now, we are looking for options of the solution. The easiest thing to start is by asking our friends, co-workers, others that have tried and do their task management. We can also get recommendations online nowadays just by look for discussions in medium, Reddit, quora or anything you can find.
Here is what I’ve found :
- Traditional by pen and papers
- Pen and papers using a specific framework —http://bulletjournal.com/
- A bunch of apps — https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/20/seven-of-the-best-to-do-list-apps
There’s an entire corner of the Internet dedicated to making people more productive. It’s full of 5 Simple Ways and 31 Genius Tips and One Weird Trick. Hundreds of apps run the gamut from beautiful list-makers to an electronic nag that literally curses at you until you get your shit done. It’s remarkably fulfilling to spend so much time organizing and planning instead of actually getting stuff done. Trust me, I do it all the time. I’m not alone, either. — David Pierce http://www.wired.com/2016/03/best-to-do-list-app/
I believe there are a bunch of any other solutions out there. I guess I’m not the only one said so haha.
When talking about solutions we must consider ourself (or our clients) as the user. There is some type of user that relate to these solutions. This is some significant type of users (personas) that might relate to this solutions.
These guys have their own routines, ones that are highly moves from one place to another and those who aren’t that mobile. They also have various tasks change or creation frequency. But don’t forget that they have differences with their knowledge and usage around technology.
Which one are you?
Solutions for each user might be different, it will fit the solution that supports their personas. So, let’s see which fit whom.
Pen & Paper seems like the most familiar solution for all of us. In my opinion, our needs on the tools to reminds us aren’t fulfilled by using pen and paper, since we need to open it to see what’s next. This kind of case will only be solved using apps that have notifications.
All of the solutions are fulfilling our needs on tasks monitoring and categorization. Each of it has its own way to support it. Like in pen and papers can be used to check and monitor our tasks by keep updating and checking on it whenever we need. Also if you want to categorize your tasks, you can just write it down in such format that fits you. On this case, you might wanted to use frameworks that work rather than creating your own formats from scratch or just use the apps without bothering about formats or frameworks.
What about the mobility? Pen and paper seem consuming spaces unless you use a small notebook that fit in your pocket. While pen and paper depend on the paper size, apps surely depend on your phone battery.
Pen and paper might have been our solution for a long time, but is it practical to keep our tasks updated? In term of changes dynamicity, pen and paper may bother us with a bunch of scratches or erase for correction or updates. When apps nowadays support this kind of things within taps and slides.
Alright, we have mapped each of the solutions. Now, which fits you well? Are you the non-tech Mr. Busy that always moves with your hourly dynamic tasks updates? A simple pen and paper might suit you, or if you would spend more exploration on formats go look for frameworks. How about the Modern Family Guy that have simple routines and tasks? Unlike Mr.Busy, I guess pen and paper with frameworks won’t hurt you. Now that Tech Guy, go on try some apps and look which fits you well.
As we can see, there are no one generic solutions for everyone, but we might have similarities. When you’re done choosing the solution, it is not the end. Don’t forget to keep adjust and adapt the solution you’ve picked for your needs. That way you can get the closest thing to the perfect solution (even though there will be no such thing as perfect).
Technology-first or Culture-first?
We have discussed on how we make compare and make a choice on solution options. But still, there is still a long way to find the right solutions.
Now, for creators, innovators, and even dreamers. Should we build a solution that led by technology (then we are the one who should adapt to the tech available to us), or vice versa?
Tell us what you think, and how you choose your solution. Okay guys, enough for me get to choose anything, now just let me choose my Pokemon! #pokemonGO
