I’ve committed one of the cardinal sins, according to the majority of productivity gurus. Not only did I invest time in my app, I wrote the app I use for my implementation of GTD, investing hundreds of hours over a period of years. And I’m not done. Every so often, I spend 30 minutes or 60 minutes making changes that bring the app closer to my views of how GTD should be done. Sometimes, during the summer when I’m getting burned out, I will make major changes to the app.
This is a horrible idea. Or so I’ve been told. “The app doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re getting your work done. Any app will work if you figure out how to use it.”
Let me set the record straight. I’ve used a ton of productivity apps. It’s false that any app will work. The vast majority will not work. They’ll do the easy stuff, like enabling you to capture a big list of open tasks, but they’re garbage when it comes to actually getting your work done.
I concluded two things:
If you don’t have too much stuff to keep organized, sure, use an existing app. They don’t scale worth a darn because they’re designed to put money in the pockets of the owners of the company. Once they get your money, they don’t care if it does the job. I’d bet most of the owners of these app companies have never had a day in their lives that they had to manage the scale of stuff I have to manage. If they did, their apps would work better.
That’s why I wrote my app. I needed it, and it didn’t exist, so I made it myself.