Build tools around workflows, not workflows around tools
When I was a young, opinionated software professional, I would have agreed with this wholeheartedly. But now that I&#x27;m nearly a couple of decades into my career, I&#x27;ve seen 1000 different workflows justified by &quot;we&#x27;re different, we&#x27;re unique&quot;.<p>And if you ask how they&#x27;re different so that they&#x27;d need a unique process to manage bugs, to manage invoices, to manage inventory, you get pretty much the same answers across the board. You hear about personalities and power structures and anecdotal preferences.<p>And sure enough, that&#x27;s exactly what you see at the link:
<i>Each person’s mind works a little differently, and each person remembers and processes information a little differently.</i><p>Yes, you&#x27;re unique. Just like everybody else.<p>The fact is, the great tools that have achieved widespread adoption understand the problems, and all their caveats, better than you. Picking any established tool to manage information and workflow and getting good at using it will usually yield better results.<p>The search for the <i>perfect</i> tool or the <i>perfect</i> workflow or the <i>perfect</i> process always ends up being the enemy of good.