One of my favourite essays is Denis Diderot’s “Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown”. This piece from the late 18th century tells the tale of how Diderot replaced his old dressing gown for a new, fancy one. Feeling that the furniture and artwork in his study were no longer commensurate with his new dressing gown, he then proceeded to replace all of them too, only to discover that he was much happier  with his old stuff. He then lamented how newer, fancier things are not the key to happiness.

It seems like every day, we are a bombarded with advertisements for new tools and applications claiming to revolutionize our way of working or greatly improving our productivity. Although a small minority of these tools may prove to be helpful, the great majority will be anything but, and same as Diderot’s new dressing gown will, in fact, destabilize the equilibrium that you have developed over the years as to the best tools for your way of working and thinking.

Oftentimes, the first things that people mention you must do when starting a new business is to invest in countless tools and applications to improve your productivity and to manage your new, fledging business. Be careful of such counsel as is often self interested since the people pushing and promoting such tools often get a commission from each sale that their followers make. The associated cost often also deprives your business of vital capital which could be otherwise deployed to better use.

However, even more concerning than the cost of these tools is that they often have a substantial learning curve which draws considerable time from you actually setting up and running your business. As you likely have but a limited number of hours to devote your business each week, the time spent learning these new tools and applications can actually harm your business as they draw away time which would otherwise be spent actually working on your business and hitting your objectives.

In many ways, all that you really need in terms of tools is a work desk, a notebook, some pens, and maybe a computer and printer. The notebook is key as it helps you keep all of your notes together and somewhat organized. David Sax in The Revenge of Analog describes how classic tools such as fountain pens and Moleskine notebooks are having quite a resurgence in our digital world. This should not be surprising as this is a distraction-free way of working, divorced from the need to fight with formatting or notification pop-ups. Studies have also shown superior memory retention for notes taken by hand as compared to typed ones. If you think about it, many of the great businesses around us today were created with just basic tools and good people. More than anything else, a distraction-free workspace, supplied with your consistent high-energy hours is the real key ingredient to success more than any fancy tool.

Under the circumstances, the answer is not to abandon modernity and blindly stick with your old ways and habits of working, but rather to limit the use of new tools and applications to where your old approaches and tools are clearly insufficient. This will avoid you upgrading for the sake of upgrading and falling into the trap of Diderot’s new dressing gown. Once your venture gets on its feet and time is not as tight, then you can explore some of these new tools. But by that point, you will likely feel that you didn’t need them anyway. So live by the old adage: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Best of luck!