The rise and demise of productivity software
Message from Jeremy: To all Tech IT Easy readers, who could obviously not necessarily remember the initial announcement, I have invited Vincent to write about innovative start ups based in the Netherlands, Apple, the media industry, incubators, business books and many other things that happen to interest him at the moment. Vince, they’re all yours!
Over the last decade or so, there’s been a lot of hype regarding the “productive” lifestyle. There are books, like The 7-8-9-10 habits of highly effective people, and Getting things done (GTD). And there are websites like Lifehacker, 43folders, and more recently the 4hourworkweek. Finally, people have been trying to transform all this advice into workable solutions based on both paper-systems (e.g. the Hipster Pda and the GTD-folder system) and software-based ones (e.g. iGTD, kGTD, etc.). And most recently, Omnigroup has been working on a software (for Macs) that would do the same as kGTD, but implemented professionally.
Money-wise, most systems require some form of investment. To understand GTD, you have to buy David Allen’s book, there is also a 4hourworkweek-book. iGTD is free, and kGTD is a set of scripts, based on a paid-for-app by Omnigroup. Omnifocus, their app-to-be-released, will go for around 50 bucks, I would guess. That’s all fine and well, but does not take into account the cost of time.
Why the demise? Essentially there are two factors that (will) contribute to it. One, from a business-model-standpoint, who are you selling it too? Individuals. Are these well-off ones? In my experience, people that make money have already got a system (e.g. the 4hourworkweek-guy). And people looking for systems are also looking for money. Just a guess.
Second, the type of app. Productive-ware is trying to profile itself as software beyond calendars and e-mail, and less complex than project-management-apps, typically used by small and medium sized businesses and project-managers. Most calendars and mail-apps are either free or come bundled with either the OS or an office-suite. Their marginal value is low. And PM-apps are aimed at revenue-generating businesses, bring management-tools to complexity, i.e. value.
Another characteristic of the mail and calendar-apps is that they are, 98% of the time, based on an open standard, making import and export manageable. Productivity-ware is not so open-minded, which also means that you have to restart your system if the existing one doesn’t work for you. That, to me, constitutes a productivity-loss.
Productivity for the individual, really? I agree that we are living in a stressful environment, and some management of e-mails, priorities, etc. is necessary. But the basic premise of productivity is really getting things done, not finding ways to get things done. The essence of productivity is managing your priorities, which requires a very simple principle: decide what the most urgent thing is and get that done first. Layer-upon-layer of added project-management techniques are really not going to make that easier.
So why the demise of productivity-ware? No money in it and a solution in search of a problem.
Note: for productivity’s sake, I would urge readers to not click on any link in this post.
Related posts:
- The rise of enterprise software 2.0
- A Network Mapping Software – perhaps my University project this year. Inputs most welcome.
- The life of a software developer, episode 2/4: the improvement of software development processes
- Software engineering: from the traditional V cycle to eXtreme programming
- Looking towards a new naming-convention for the wave of web/software-services
The best tool I have ever used for managing my agenda was (and will remain)…Excel.
But then I am no kind of reference when it comes to organize one’s agenda.
“But then I am no kind of reference when it comes to organize one’s agenda.”
If you were, you should write a book
In order of usage, my productivity tools are: my head, a piece of paper, notepad or equivalent, and, very occasionally, a calendar. I did actually read GDT, but could’ve probably used that time more productively and start my own business or something, not to mention, finish my thesis.
I think I got good ideas from GTD (I even listened to the podcasts with Merlin and David Allen). I agree with you Vincent, that many of those productivity applications are anything but. The initial investment of time and trying to fit your mental map into them… too hard.
Merlin on 43folders often warns that using apps and finding the most “productive” productivity framework defeats the whole purpose. Unfortunately for the software development guys (who seem to be overworked and busy, at least guessing from the pace they write out all this different apps), the solutions for better priority management are low tech. The apps might work if I was connected to my computer 24/7.
I use iCal+iSync+my cell phone -combination for most tasks. I also use short lists on paper.
And Vincent, of course you could’ve used that time more “productively”, but you chose to read GTD. I’d argue that it wasn’t reading GTD that was stopping you from staring your business or finishing your thesis =)
Ah the complexity of explaining your past bad decisions… it’s best to always blame the common denominator, the decision-maker himself.