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!

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.

Thanks for the comment =)

I can see from your blog that you definitely don't confine yourself in YOUR
comfort zone ;)

Thanks for the comment! I'll admit it – I too suffer from “shiny new thing”
syndrome ;)

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 ;)

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
=)

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.

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.

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 =)

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” ;)

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.