The benefits of changing to a new tool

If you’ve followed this blog very long, you know that I like to try out different tools. I often change what I use for my tasks, planning, email, all kinds of things. I enjoy learning new technology and have fun trying out different tools.

However, there are two other big advantages to changing tools from time to time.

Enjoy the new stuff, but bring along things that worked before

No two tools are the same. When you switch to a different tool, you’ll likely gain and lose a few features. When possible, though, you can often bring along ideas from one tool to the next, making for the best of both.

For example, when I moved from the Full Focus Planner to Notion for my daily and weekly planning (and later to Roam Research), I brought along quite a few lessons and implemented them in Notion and then Roam. I got the benefits of the newer systems, but brought along lessons and ideas from the older systems.

Get the clutter out of the corners

Part of the pain of moving to a new tool is cleaning out some of the cruft, whether that’s old tasks you never got around to, or junk from six years ago in your Evernote. Either way, moving to a new system is a great time to clean that stuff up and give yourself a bit of a fresh start.

When I change systems, I generally do it manually. That creates a lot more work, but it gives me a chance to clean-up, reorganize, and really do it right.

When I moved my stuff out of Evernote a few years ago, it took quite a while to move everything but it gave me an opportunity to put things in the right places. Most stuff ended up in Roam Research, but some things were put in different places. For example, I had foolishly stored some password in Evernote years ago, so those went into LastPass for safe keeping.

Do you enjoy moving?

Part of this comes down to your personality. For me, I like trying out new tools and tend to move frequently. Others don’t, and that’s fine. I’d still encourage you to keep your eyes open from time to time, as a move to a better system might benefit you in a lot of ways, and the processing of moving itself could be great too.