How ‘tool anxiety’ can keep you from achieving your goals
I knew I wanted to write something, but I didn’t know what I should use.
Should I use Google Docs or Word or Pages? Or a notepad or IAWriter or Scrivener, or newer, shinier tools like Notion and Coda?
And where should I post? Was Medium better or a newsletter (TinyLetter, MailChimp, Substack?) or a separate blog (and what blogging platform to use? Wordpress? Make my own?)
After hours of clicking down various rabbit holes, something hit me.
I was using the step of selecting a tool as a distraction from the actual work of writing.
I realized that all of my deliberation was just tool anxiety: the choice paralysis that occurs when confronted with an overwhelming array of options, which prevents you making progress on the task at hand.
Especially when it comes to online tools: we are thoroughly inundated. Every app has endless pages of reviews and opinions. There is always something new coming out.
Too easily we can find ourselves besieged by the trifecta of tool anxiety: endless options + choice paralysis + busy work, which ultimately leads to inaction where it matters the most!
It didn’t really matter what I chose. No matter what text editor I wrote in, I could copy and…
