That’s definitely part of it. Efficiency/effectiveness/capacity tend to get grouped. It causes some talking past one another.
I agree!
I use some apps because I like the design (like Fantastical)… just because I have to look at it all day long
Yeah, no. I’m going in the opposite direction. For example, my Reading / Research stack:
- Readwise Reader for books and PDFs I need for the projects I’m currently working on.
- Readwise Reader for the fiction and non-fiction books I’m currently reading for pleasure.
- Matter for email / Substack / Patron newsletters (I have a Mimestream filter set up to label them as newsletters and forward them to Matter. I delete them from my inbox pronto and read them in Matter at my leisure.)
- Matter for podcast transcripts. (I port them to Obsidian if they’re worth archiving.)
- Natural Reader for PDFs and articles I want to listen to. (I’m fussy about speech-to-text quality, so I pay for the good AI voices.)
- GoodLinks for articles related to current projects and areas of interest. (Since I’m a digital hoarder in recovery, I am very strict about what I save. If I can’t tag it using my pre-defined set of tags, it doesn’t belong in a RIL app.)
- An ARC browser workspace for the newspapers, magazines, and journals I subscribe to.
- An ARC browser workspace for the various databases (e.g. JSTOR, or Oxford Art Online) that I access via my New York Public Library account.
- News Explorer for the handful of websites I access via RSS
When I’m at my Mac I do all of my reading in designated workspaces I’ve set up in ARC browser (including reading in Matter and Readwise Reader). If I’m using a mobile device, I use the relevant app.
Re storage: PDFs are stored in a Bookmarks attachments folder. Books are stored in Calibre. Articles worth archiving are clipped to Obsidian via the excellent Obsidian Web Clipper. It’s all indexed in a DEVONthink database so I can find things later.
Why do it this way? To avoid cognitive overload. (I have more money than mental shelf space.) I find I focus better if I can go to a specific place for a specific kind of reading and research at the appropriate time. When it’s time to read the newspaper, I go to ARC. If I’m reading for learning, I go to Readwise Reader. Etc etc etc. I could probably shoehorn all of it into Readwise Reader, but it’s just too fiddly to set up and manage the kind of contextual workspaces I need. I know it looks nuts on paper, but it’s the workflow stack that meets my needs and keeps me focussed.
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Totally agree with you. Those of us who spent/spend any length of time on Unix or Linux understand the idea of apps that do a single thing well. (I understand macOS is Unix, but for a lot of people it’s Unix-i-ness is not really noticed.)
I agree that having a tool that serves a single purpose and that you may not use that often is okay for one to keep in one’s stack. I’d never want to lose grep, even though I don’t use it all that often. I feel that way about a number of mac and iPadOS apps, too.
But I think if you step through the three essential questions, you’d be okay keeping these apps. They probably pass the second and third tests.
Also, I think this is dealing with the proliferation of apps that we keep in our stacks, that occupy space in our brains, but that don’t contribute to problems we want to solve with our computers.
I was seriously temped to bail after the first paragraph:
I remember the initial thrill of discovering productivity apps. Each download promised to revolutionize my workflow and solve all my organizational challenges. But within months, I was hoarding abandoned note-taking apps, redundant project managers, and timers I never used.
Sounds like the problem wasn’t with the tech.
I seem to be one of those people who do not suffer from buyer’s remorse or FOMO. My oldest license for BBEdit is from 2005, I still use it as my primary text editor. I also use Obsidian and Drafts for working with text on a regular basis. And I’ve a few specialized tools for specific text related tasks that I use rarely, but are the right tool when I need them.
I don’t have a dozen text editors or note apps. And I don’t rush to download every new shiny thing.
That’s just one category. And yet, my applications folder has over 300 items (yeah, I’m sure a few should be disposed of properly).
In the end, I suppose agree with the author. Select a set of tools that do what you need. But the problem she has is not that she has too many apps. It is that she is unable to make a choice and stick to it. Or maybe, she hasn’t really defined the problem she is trying to solve.
There are people who make a living trying new apps. Then there are people who use apps to make a living. It seems like the author of this piece just realized she’s in the latter group.
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Where did you get that quote?
It’s contradicting this:
GTD is not doing more hard work
It’s about doing the right thing at the right time
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You rightly point out, @rob, how GTD is widely misunderstood. As you noted, GTD provides a framework for getting the right things done in the right context with a clear mind.
But we digress… 
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Efficiency? Another quote for that.
“It’s not always about the b****y ROI.” — Tim Cook.
In all seriousness, if it helps you get your work done, then it’s worth having. For me, I start many things I do not finish. i move from one task to another as I feel the need or desire to. The important stuff gets done. Not because I programmed my life to achieve it, but because it was important.
Following processes is my idea of hell, perhaps because I have been subjected to so many bad ones.
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It was not intended as a quote. It was intended to emphasize the idea that productivity, as generally discussed, is about producing more, “getting more done.” I’m very familiar with David Allen’s work. I’ve attended his workshops and read both of his books. I loosely follow his methodology.
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I am going through this exercise.
Over the years I have bought and tested several apps for each workflow need. Some have proved better suited to my requirements than others, but an app may have few unique features that persuades me to keep it for those special cases. Some apps change for the worse and that makes it easy to discard them.
The trend of switching to subscription models, and my reduced needs and budget in retirement, have persuaded me to cull unnecessary apps. It has also forced me to fully investigate all the features of each app, and to use more automation, to ensure I am getting maximum benefit.
Reducing the number of apps on my Mac has been highly beneficial for me. It has saved me the subscription on apps I rarely use. In many cases I have been able to revert to a free Apple app instead of a paid third party one. I have fewer apps and hotkeys to learn, which makes me more productive.
The main difficulty I have experienced is deciding which app to abandon if two have similar functions and benefits. It is good to have the choice though.
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I thought it was funny that she cut her stack down to still a crap load of stuff, and so many writing helpers that you could easily drop the text into each one and they would revise selves into eternity.
From the headline, I was hoping it was a bit more, “Stick to an app, stop reading about other apps, blah blah,” and showing what she did with minimalism, but if she is slapping herself on the back so much, I wonder what she had in place before.
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