Reducing my PIM/Knowledge/Writing Tools

Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Apr 3, 2007 at 06:24 PM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>

>The months away from non-professional internet use helped me curb my
>CRIMP habits. They also helped me realise a key issue in my long search for the holy PIM
>grail, namely that one’s consistent use of a tool makes that tool ever more useful.

This is true, but I would contend that using selected alternative tools occasionally can lead to even greater usefulness of the primary tool. Often the difference between one tool and another is in the way it conduces you to work rather than any approach it compels. I find that often using an alternative program can make me aware of a better way of doing things, strategies that can easily enough be implemented in the first program.

>Knowledge workers are the modern equivalent of craftsmen and as craftsmen we need to
>invest time in becoming skilled in our tools.

Just one quibble. I don’t think our software tools stand in the same relation to our work as the tools of a craftsman. Or maybe this is just my ignorance of crafts. A craftsman’s skill is pretty much expressed in his ability to use mechanical tools to achieve results. Whereas our ability to use softwhere tools is just a component of knowledge worker abilities. A craftsman who can’t use any mechanical tools would be incompetent. A lawyer who can’t—picking a field I’m familiar with—just gets a secretary or law clerk.