Conservation and concentration of effort

The woman sitting next to me on the plane is successful by any measure--she's happy, engaged, making a difference.

And she confessed that she doesn't buy anything from Amazon, doesn't use Facebook, rarely connects online.

How is this possible?

I think it's because true effort multipliers are rare indeed. Without a doubt, a good tool helps us do a task better, but often, particularly online, there's so much effort and overhead and fear associated with the tools we use that sometimes they don't leverage our work as much as we give them credit for.

It might be that time spent knitting, reading, being introspective and digging deep is more productive than checking a Twitter feed just one more time.

There isn't a magic formula, the perfect combination of tools to use or to avoid. What matters more is the decision to matter.