Are You Sabotaging Yourself With Inferior Tools?

Swiss Army Knife

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”
-Abraham Maslow

Do you know how to properly eat a grapefruit?

Sure, opinions vary – but there is one method I’ve found superior to all others, and surprisingly, 80% of my friends had never heard of it (four out of five isn’t very scientific – but stick with me).

Some people cut it in half and use a tea spoon to smash the fruit, while others peel it and attempt to eat the juicy pulp by pulling it away from the pith (that white, sour stuff).

There’s a better tool for the job – the grapefruit spoon.

Spoon Grapefruit Knife Right Tool Ruby Red

Never heard of it?  Neither have most of my friends – and many of them enjoy grapefruit juice, but don’t eat grapefruits because it’s too difficult!

A grapefruit spoon has one important difference separating it from “normal” spoons.  The end of it is pointed like a triangle, and the sides of it are serrated. This provides a number of advantages.

With a grapefruit spoon, eating grapefruits goes from being a chore to being a pleasure.  I casually separate the pulp from the pith, and scoop it up to eat.  Unlike “smashing it with a spoon” the risk for a stray geyser of fruit juice to the eye is minimized.  Innocent bystanders no longer flee in terror at the sight of a grapefruit  (to some, this may be considered a disadvantage).

Finally, I think it looks cool.

Don’t Be Held Back By The Tools

I think there are a few important lessons to be learned here that apply to many aspects of our lives, starting with this -

  • If You Don’t Look For The Tools, You’ll Never Find Them.  My friends never considered that there might be a better way. They assumed that the way they’d always eaten grapefruit was the only way there was.
  • There Often Is An Easier Way.  Some of my friends suffered and ate grapefruits the hard way – manually peeling it, or struggling with a regular teaspoon.  Don’t make things harder on yourself than they have to be – seek out the right tools for the job.
  • Don’t Overcomplicate.  The spoon I’ve displayed is the one I use.  I think it’s beautiful. It’s simply designed to handle one task well, and just by taking a look at it you can figure out how it works. There are a number of other different corers and scoops I have seen that may do the job and then some – but all I want is a tool that gets me my grapefruit.  So often (especially in the productivity field) we overcomplicate our lives with fancy gadgets, different task lists, color coded folders and systems – when all we need is a simple strategy for accomplishing our goals.

Information As Tools

One trap I often see (and, let’s be honest – fall into myself) is reading and absorbing new information without applying it.  That doesn’t do anybody any good – knowledge needs to be applied to have any effect on my goals.

Information is a tool. I don’t buy books because of fancy covers or because I like the smell of them (though I do enjoy it) – I buy them for specific tools I can use to improve myself.  My favorite personal development books reflect this: they’re thoughtfully written and contain tons of great ideas to change my perspective, but they were all actionable. Every single one of those books is on my bookshelf today, and not a month (if even a week) goes by without me opening each and every one of them to keep the ideas fresh in my mind.

Every strategy I pick up and apply to my life improves me in some way – whether it helps me get more motivated, or helps me improve a particular fault, or perhaps simply shows me a better way to be organized.

Your Thoughts?

I’d love to hear what you think .  Do you use a grapefruit spoon? Agree/disagree with my thoughts? And what personal development tools do you use to be more effective?

Enjoy this article? You should Tweet This and share it with your friends, or feel free to share it however you like using this shortened link: http://tr.im/thespoon

Further Reading

Favorite This Week

Get On The List and Get Your Free Course and Ebook!

Personal Development 101 Cover
  • Your free personal development course, Personal Development 101
  • Instant updates when new articles get published
  • Your free copy of The Little Book Of Big Motivational Quotes

Enter Your Email Address Now:


Please review the Comment Policy.
  • evanhadkins
    I like this approach very much. And wonder about the process of getting better at using the tools.
  • Hi Evan,

    Thanks as always for the comment and vote of confidence - I really
    appreciate your support =)
  • Nomi
    Grapefruit spoons are nice -- I have one, which I used as a kid in my parents' house, and my kids use today -- but they still carry a risk of squirting you in the face. Know what's better? A grapefruit knife. Sharp, curved, toothed, and fast. Then you can serve your grapefruits up with regular teaspoons.

    I guess the related moral is, just because you've found a tool that's better than the kluge-fix you've been limping along with up til now, doesn't mean there's not something even better out there. :)
  • Hi Nomi,

    Ahh the grapefruit knife - touche!

    I know it well I used to have a curved green one =). That knife traveled
    around the world with me. To be honest, a grapefruit knife *is* superior to
    the spoon for fast service. You have me there ;)

    I have used both, and right now I prefer the spoon very slightly, but only
    because I have a tendency to drop the grapefruit with the knife when
    scooping it to my mouth. However, when I was more of a grapefruit
    connoisseur and ate them more frequently, I do recall being fairly adept at
    balancing the grapefruit on the knife tip with minimal drops ;)

    I agree with your moral though - even the grapefruit spoon can meet its
    match when faced with the grapefruit knife! Well played!
  • Amy
    I have one even better. Get someone else to chop it up for you :) It burns my delicate emeralds too bad!

    Great post, Sid! Scary you sniff books (do you get a buzz?) ;) But I have to say I, too, have a hard time remembering to use the info once I read it. Strange, sometimes I will read something and agree with it and then go back to the same book years later and realize I didn't implement it. So, yes, you have to use the information or it's useless.

    I printed out the "How To Focus On What Truly Matters" post on Zen Habits you wrote and I have to say it is helping me tremendously right now. I sat down the other day after reading it and was inspired. I wrote at the top of the page "Goodbye" and started listing things I needed to get rid of in my life that didn't lead to that ultimate dream.

    Keep the great posts coming :)
  • Hey Amy,

    Haha. It's true, I love the smell of a new book - or an old book. Not so
    much the in between books! The one book that I feel like I refer to
    constantly is "Getting Things Done" - I have read it (and referred to it) so
    many times, but I keep finding great ideas in it that I swear weren't there
    before!

    I am so glad the "How To Focus" article is helping you too. I worked really
    hard on it. Well, I work really hard on all my articles - even the ones
    people don't like! ;). I was really happy with how that one came out, and
    I'm glad other people could relate to it too.

    If you enjoyed that article, I linked to one of Leo's articles about life
    mission/life purpose that is right in line with it and you might like as
    well. Actually I think Leo's whole site is amazing, it's almost surreal I
    got to write a post for it. Definitely one of my highlights!

    And thanks so much for the compliment about my posts - I really appreciate
    it =).
  • Sid,

    I think your post leverages exactly what you are talking about really well. It's short and it's to the point. one thing a friend told me once was that you should always build the car from high quality parts to begin with. Quality can be a huge time/money saver. I think when you let go of quality in your tools, the quality of your work suffers.
  • Hi Srinivas,

    Thanks for your comment!

    Great point and anecdote about your friend - I think that holds true with
    quality of your tools, quality of your effort - and in the long run, quality
    of your life. I know that it's not *all* about the tools - but having the
    right (and quality!) tools sure helps =)
  • NuNomad
    I had to laugh at your choice of using a grapefruit spoon for an analogy - only because I have had many discussions in my home with friends when I pull out our grapefruit spoons and they have never seen one before and don't know how to use it. I grew up with grapefruit spoons so to me they seem like the only logical way to eat a grapefruit. I can never understand why people go to the trouble to cut all around with a knife. I think I would never eat one if I had to do this. Sorry to be so concrete here - you've just sent me into grapefruit spoon flashbacks.
  • Hey NuNomad!

    Haha. Well, to each his own as far as the "only logical way" to eat a
    grapefruit ;). It is pretty amazing though the lengths people will go to,
    cutting around the whole grapefruit etc. I'm sure there is a life lesson
    here about "sharpening the saw" ;)
  • Sid,

    Spot on - as always from you.

    One thought I'd throw into the mix, however, involves application of the tools.

    Using Tools does not a Strategy Make.

    I've often seen the mistake of learning about and applying a great tool - but with an absence of clear plan or purpose (not that your post suggests this - it's just a general warning).

    To extend your analogy further (beyond the breaking point, probably...) - I learn all about grapefruit spoons (or knives as Nomi points out). I rush out and get my very own grapefruit spoon and take it back home. Now what? I suddenly realize:

    (a) I need some grapefruits to cut these with;
    (b) I don't know if I even like grapefruits; and
    (c) I'm not sure why I need to cut the grapefruits up in the first place.

    If I have (or plan to acquire) grapefruits, I like grapefruits and I plan to cut them regularly. Then I start by developing a strategy. In this example, that strategy would include the use of an excellent tool - the grapefruit spoon.

    Be careful (per the old cliche) not to put the cart before the horse.
  • Hey Seth,

    Wow, thanks for your in depth comment! I really appreciate the time you took
    to read the post and expand this discussion =)

    I like the way you expanded the analogy for even broader applications.
    You're right, my post discusses ensuring you have the right tool for the
    job - and you bring up excellent additional considerations, of ensuring
    before you rush out and get the tools, that they are actually what you need.

    I think this is especially relevant in the productivity/GTD/etc space. I
    literally receive 2-3 product pitches a day for new task management tools,
    dream management, goal setting, etc. I have no doubt they are excellent
    tools and fill a need - but for me to personally use hundreds of tools to
    track my task list would be a little ridiculous =)
  • I'd take it a step beyond: a grapefruit spoon is something of a unitasker — it's not so great if I want to eat spaghetti or brownies or anything else besides grapefruit. It's a good tool, but only if you want to eat grapefruit. For other purposes, you need a whole drawer full of tools.

    I really like the metaphor of the grape fruit spoon. It really works and illustrates the concept on so many different levels.
  • Hey Thursday,

    Thanks for the comment - I like your point about it being a unitasker, and
    really only good for one thing. Absolutely on point.

    While I agree that one cannot eat spaghetti with a grapefruit spoon, I think
    that a grapefruit spoon *could* be used to scoop brownies from a pan. Good
    idea? Probably not.

    Where does this take the metaphor? I don't know ;). If one was to eat
    brownies with it, perhaps the lesson would be that we can sometimes use
    tools and *think* we are using them effectively - when we're actually using
    it for something they aren't optimized for?

    Or maybe that when life hands you a grapefruit spoon - eat grapefruits, not
    brownies.
  • Hi Sid.

    Very nice stuff here.

    I don't know why I haven't seen an article on this topic in a long time. The right tools make a huge difference. All my FireFox add-ons and customizations and such, or my little shortcut changes or program usages do so much. I don't realize these things until someone shows me something they use that makes things way easier, or I point out something I use that surprises someone.

    One example that comes to mind is that I use AutoHotkey for my comment information. I press Windows Key + Z and it types my name, presses tab, types my e-mail, presses tab, and then types my URL. This makes things a lot easier for most sites. For the ones that have those three out of order, I use InFormEnter to click and pick them, which I got from Glen at PluginID. Minimalist GMail that Leo got someone to make is another thing I'm glad to use to make GMail clean. I could go on but the tools I have that others don't have give me a huge advantage, and the ones others have that I don't have give them a huge advantage over me.

    I think that is why I would like to look over the shoulders of many people out there to see how they do things.

    Thanks for reminding me also to keep a lookout for the next good tool.
  • Hey Armen,

    Thanks for the comment!

    Your description of your personal tools is right on the money. I too use a
    bunch of Firefox customizations - to the point now when I use someone else's
    computer, I often forget what is part of Firefox and what I've installed!

    Great extensions and tools you've pointed out - and I think those are
    totally legitimate. There's nothing gained by manually typing in your name,
    email and URL everytime - the actual body of the comment is where one should
    be spending their time writing =)

    On a side note, regarding comments - that is part of the reason I chose to
    use DISQUS on my blog. For regular commenters, if you make a DISQUS account
    (unsure f you have), you're always logged in on any DISQUS website and can
    comment - and immediately get replies by email, and even reply to comments
    by email.

    I think it's awesome - right now I am replying to you via my Gmail account.
    I can even reply from my iphone when I'm out somewhere and have some spare
    time to read comments.

    To bring the discussion full circle - like you, I like to carefully choose
    my tools =). I chose DISQUS because it's a great comments tool for the job
    - it can make life easier for regular commenters, and for me since it sends
    comments to me via email and I can reply via email, it smoothly integrates
    into my workflow.
  • I_am_Ash
    Hi Sid
    I've recently come across your blog, and added you to follow on Twitter. I think your blog is brilliant!
    However, as another commenter pointed out, a grapefruit spoon is a uni-tasker, I can't do anything else with it. In addition, I don't really eat grapefruit. So I'd really first ask what I need tools for.
    If I do eat grapefruit, do I eat them often enough for me to invest in a grapefruit spoon? As someone who writes about frugality, I'd wonder if buying a grapefruit spoon would really be worthwhile - how often would I use it? Even if a normal spoon is a less elegant way of eating grapefruit, if I only eat grapefruit once a week, maybe I wouldn't get enough usage out of a grapefruit spoon to justify buying it. Finally, although this may sound like blasphemy for a grapefruit lover, maybe I should just simplify my life and stop eating grapefruit? (haha!)
  • Hey Ash,

    Thanks so much for your comment - I really appreciate it!

    Blasphemous grapefruit tossing aside (an issue we will never see eye to eye
    on ;) ) I think you make some great points.

    I'd like to focus on one of them especially which has really got me
    thinking. From the standpoint of frugality, you mention we should weigh the
    cost versus how much we will use it. I think this is right on, and brings a
    whole new set of considerations to any tool. You're absolutely right in
    that if one eats grapefruit infrequently, and you want to minimize clutter,
    perhaps a grapefruit spoon is not advisable.

    Imagine this though - what if it took 10 hours to eat a grapefruit without
    a spoon, and gave you immense enjoyment (much more than normal food). Then
    perhaps it might tilt the scales in the favor of the grapefruit spoon. On
    the other hand, as you mention,

    My point being that I think you've brought up a great consideration - we
    need to consider the costs (in terms of money, time to maintain, clutter,
    etc) versus benefits (time saved, money saved, enjoyment) of any tool - and
    just because a tool makes things better for a small activity, it may not
    overall improve the quality of your life or the larger project (in the case
    of a grapefruit spoon, the larger project perhaps being an uncluttered
    kitchen and everyone in the house getting fed).

    Phew! Ok, back to reality - where grapefruits are tasty treats, grapefruit
    spoons reign supreme - and it no longer takes 10 hours to peel a grapefruit
    =)
  • I_am_Ash
    Hey Sid, glad you liked my comment!
    As someone who blogs about frugality, happiness and personal growth, I'm constantly looking at the value equation.
    And the next time I go grocery shopping, I'll buy myself some grapefruit! :)
  • Hey Ash,

    And perhaps, if they're available, you can scope out the grapefruit spoons -
    if that's what you decide you want ;)

    I think frugality (or at least, making sure you own the possessions and they
    don't own you), happiness and personal growth are all related - and I
    checked out breathe-smile, fantastic stuff. Long, in depth, meaty posts -
    just the way I like them. The quote about obstacles being a part of life is
    one of my favorites ;)
  • I_am_Ash
    Aww Sid, I'm so glad you liked my posts! As a new blogger I'm really really concerned about post quality. Feel free to drop by again! :)
  • You're welcome Ash - I'm signed up for RSS updates =). I don't comment much,
    I'm more of a lurker reader ;)
  • Excellent post. It's very insightful and I think many, many people will benefit from reading this since our cultures are very much trained to want the shiniest, most popular (but not necessarily most effective) things.
  • Hey Clement,

    Thanks for the comment! I'll admit it - I too suffer from "shiny new thing"
    syndrome ;)
  • That's an amazing piece, Sid. I think too often we forget we have so many choices around us and chose to stick with what we know, without reaching further. We tend to confine ourselves in a comfort zone, even if this comfort zone prevents us from experiencing new stuff. We use a regular spoon most of the time, because we feel comfortable, but we could experience so much more with a grapefruit spoon. :-)
  • Hey Dragos,

    Thanks for the comment =)

    I can see from your blog that you definitely don't confine yourself in YOUR
    comfort zone ;)
  • david
    Sid - is that grapefruit spoon emacs or vim?
  • Hey David,

    Grapefruit spoons are not effective when used with jars, but I think there
    is a ruby gem for it somewhere =P

    Semi-related, I just saw Compass and Fancy Buttons on Hacker News. Talking
    about tools, that is one impressive little button maker!

    Shiny.
  • I agree with you - many people ignore that there may be a better tool for the job.

    The other trend I notice is that people often choose the cheaper tool - the intention being save a small amount of money up front, but end up with a lot more work on the back end managing the tool or having a much shorter lifespan.

    Buy nice or buy twice!