This post is a comment/reply to Jaan Orvets post What are you looking at?.

I read the What are you looking at? post on Sharpenr and started an inventory of the online environment I work. To pass the “and how does it impact the decisions you make for your clients”-criteria I sorted out the apps I’m using for the daily delivery/production; Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, FontLab and so on. I focused on the apps that affects the way I run my bussiness, and the decicions I make; Basecamp, Horde webb-mail, Excel, FastDial, Wordpress, Text-Editor, Statto, Feedburner, WriteRoom, MyDisk, CandyBar.

Quite fast I realised that I use a lot of small apps with one or two basic functions. Why? Where is the large multi-task, cross-function apps that is supposed to work as “umbrellas” for everything you do?

A few years ago I often searched for and tried out “umbrella”-apps that I thought I needed to run my business, I wanted quick overview and access to contacts that was incorporated with ongoing projects. In the same view I wanted calendars related to my contacts and projects, incorporated with the calendars I wanted timetracking and invoicing functions, not to mention the filesystem, prospects, to-dos, might-dos, must-dos, e-mail overview, RSS-updates, bookmarks, inspiration-stuff and sketches for coming projects. At the time I was stressed as hell, not organized, often angry and working 24/7.

Since a year my mood has changed, I’m less stressed, more focused, more organized and much happier. What has changed?

I have the same type of clients, I’m involved in the same level of productions, or actually I handle larger productions, have more people involved, keeping up with more deadlines and at the samt time I have moved 2 hours train-trip away from my customers. So why isn’t my situation even worse than a few years ago?

Well, the answer lies in the apps I using.

The way you behave is ruled by split-second-decisions that you make but can not control, it’s your gut-feeling that your daily behaviour is based on. You make subconcious decisions even before your brain has reflected on the decision just made. You feel that something shall be this or that way long before you can put your finger on what made you feel that way.

Apps that supports those split-second desicions instead of interfering with them is the apps that will survive.

Normally when a app or product is developed the goal is to make a product that will do everything for you, have tons of features aimed to make it unbelivebly flexibel, it’s often aimed to be “the only blah-blah-product you’ll ever need”. But why? What’s wrong with the people that thinks that I need that kind of product. In 3 months it will make me unflexible, outdated and totally locked in to the logics of the app.

Look up the words “function” and “feature” in a dictionary; “function” translates to “working”, feature translates to “show”, “demonstrate”, “charachteristics”. “Feature” does not relate to working in any way. And that is the most significant difference between the apps that will survive and the one that will be passed to the deadlist. Functions live, feature dies.

Our main tool when running a business is our brain. Period. That is the only tool you shall focus and rely on. Your brain makes 95% of yor calculations, decisions, sorts out logics, information and stores relations. 95% of your project management system is located in your brain. So when you start up your tools and apps you really just need a place to store the results and decisions that is coming out of your brain. If you enter a tool or app that forces you, due to the architecture of the app, to redo the sorting, calculations and decisions it will be contra-productive, it will make you feel unsecure, stressed and it will affect your business and clients in a negative way.

So by saying an app shall support your split-second desicions, support you gut-feeling-decicions it must be clean, well designes and contain a minimal amout of functions.