You Don't Need Another Tool

This post resonates with me. But mostly because we've come to equate tools with data. And that "tool = data" mindset (in my view) is the reason for having this problem to solve in the first place.

If the data for a particular need of mine was in a standardized format, it wouldn't matter which tool I used as I could switch at any point in time.

The post mentions Excel as the go-to tool. What I would have liked the author to be able to say instead is - "use spreadsheet-data as the first data-container for the data needed". If a better data-format, more specialized for my need exist, migrate to that instead. The tool to interact with that data should be the secondary choice. Something that could be reevaluated at a later time if needed, without loosing past data due to lock-in effects.

Sometimes you don't realize there's a problem until you try doing it a different way. If you always wait until there's a problem, you're likely to get stuck doing things the hard way. There's nothing wrong with taking the occasional moment to see what new tools are out there, if anything to simply be a bit more efficient. If you're looking for new tools all the time to procrastinate, or simply always hoping something will do the heavy lifting for you then that's another story.