Ask HN: What's the most important tool you use?

Should have clarified physical or virtual in the question. I’ll go with physical since that’s more fun and we don’t see it enough.

My answer is...a catalog.

The internet makes it easy to find something, but knowing what to find, having those holistic, framework-sized grasp, is hard without exposure to something as rigorously organized and easy to flip through as a catalog.

Flipping through a Uline or Demco catalog will blow your mind. Some of this stuff has been invented 50 years and you have no idea. Wish I could link to some good examples but am on mobile / trust me on this, the catalogs are free after all.