The Tools That Got Away

Given my last post was on the tools that stuck, it felt right to write one on the ones that didn’t. Some lasted a few weeks, others only a few days. Most faded the same way they arrived, full of promise but never quite at home in my routine. It wasn’t that they were bad; they just never fit neatly into my life no matter how hard I tried to make it a routine.

Budget apps like YNAB or Mint always looked promising, but I could never keep them alive for long. They want precision and discipline, which are great in theory but too rigid in practice. I found myself spending more time correcting the software than understanding the numbers. Over time it became a chore and the value I got from them was less than the value I extracted so they would naturally fall away. I think over the years I’ve given YNAB alone 4 different tries with the most recent one being earlier this year and again it just never sticks.

Note apps like Obsidian, Notion, and Bear were another recurring experiment. I hear so many wonderful things about these apps so I always feel as if I’m missing out. Every few months I’d rebuild a new system from scratch, folders and tags and backlinks, all with good intent. A week later I’d forget about it and go back to plain text. The notes outlast the structure every time. My go to is CMD+N on VS Code and notetake there and as clunky as it is, it just seems to work for me.

I tend to default back to Google Meet despite trying to make Zoom stick. It isn’t better, but it’s simpler and it gets out of the way. The goal is to talk, not to manage another interface and the fewer desktop apps I have to open on a daily basis the better my day seems to be.

Hey! (the email service not the exclamation) was another that I wanted to work. I liked the design and the opinions behind it, but I kept finding myself back in a plain desktop client. It does seem that I tend to default back to boring really is better.

Discord falls into that same category. I like the idea of it, but I never found a rhythm there. It always feels a little too much like shouting in a crowded room, and I’ve never been good at that kind of noise. It’s another where I feel I miss out on some of the hype but that’s never been enough to keep something as a mainstay for my use.

These are all tools I wanted to love, but that’s not enough to make them last. The ones that stay are the ones that quietly fit into the system of you. The rest fade, leaving behind exports, empty workspaces, and the quiet realization that usefulness isn’t universal.

— Lauren