Can’t Find the App You’re Looking For?
Maybe It’s Time to Stop Looking and Start Deleting
Have you ever looked at your smartphone, scrolled from screen to screen and wondered how you acquired so many apps?
And, of course, you can’t find the one you need due to the clutter?
How many of those apps are you actively using?
Can you even remember when or why you installed half of those apps?
To put this in perspective, I’ll use an analogy of tools and a toolbox.
Let’s say you have a toolbox that is relatively small; it holds 15 items.
When you go to Home Depot, there are thousands of tools you could purchase. You’ve probably got 100 of them in your garage.
Some of them you’ve never used. But, they looked so cool you couldn’t help yourself. Who could resist a solar-powered screwdriver with a laser guidance system?
But — now you have a specific job to perform. Your brother-in-law called and his car has died 10 miles outside of town. You have a garage of tools to choose from, which 15 tools will you pack in your small toolbox.
Every tool needs to be judged by its ability to help you finish the job. There’s no room for a tool that’s just a novelty. And you can’t use the logic:
I’m not sure how I’ll use this, so I’ll pack it just in case.
I guess you could use that logic, but you’ll need to upgrade to a toolbox that holds 100 tools, not just 15.
Now — think of your cognitive bandwidth as the toolbox, and the entire population of apps is the quantity of available tools.
You can’t fit every app into your cognitive bandwidth (or your smartphone). You need to select the ones that are critical for your job.
Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, uses the term Any Benefit.
It’s a mentality that says:
If there is even the slightest possible benefit, I should probably install this app.
If you thought the thousands of tools at Home Depot was a problem, there are over 3 million apps in the Android store and over 2 million in the Apple store.
Let’s say you’re a writer and you’re curious if you need something more than good old MS Word.
Entering the search term “apps for writers” will bring up a link with the title:
15 Apps for Writers That Every Aspiring Author Needs On Her Phone
- MindNode
- Story Tracker
- The Brainstormer
- Pomodoro Timer
- Agent Obvious
- WordBook
- Goodreader
- Index Card
- Spotify
- Coffitivity
- Writers App
- Lists for Writers
- Beautiful Tarot
- Dragon Dictation
- iA Writer Pro
I’m sure this is a “best” list and there are dozens if not hundreds of others.
I wonder how many of these Steven King uses.
Somehow the authors of the classics got by without an app or the internet.
Ditto for the millions of non-classics that are pre-internet, but simply a good book to curl-up with at night.
If you’re like me, there’s a risk of going down the tunnel of finding the perfect suite of apps to help me write and I’ll end up with a phone full of little-used apps that I play with, stop using after a week, and in the meantime, I’ve written nothing.
A few people pushing back.
David Kadavy (one of my favorite writers and podcasters) recommends going on ebay and buying an Alphasmart. It’s a simple portable word processor that was introduced in the mid-1990s. Cost is under $30.
If you take this to the coffee shop, library or park, you’ll never be tempted to pop onto the internet or check your mail, because you can’t do anything but write!
Whether it’s writing or any other type of work, consider how many tools you want in your toolbox.
Only pack what is essential.
