Geek to Live: How to find the perfect productivity tools - Lifehacker
Gina nails it in her overview of how she evaluates and chooses tools:
While you evaluate your choices - Palm Pilot? Hipster PDA? EssentialPIM? A Moleskine? - instead of considering the features of one approach over another, turn your focus inward. What must your calendar do for you? How will you use it? Will it fit into your life? Be honest. Don’t let the features dictate how you use the tool, let your needs dictate what features you require…
Taste-testing is easy. Committing to a tool is more difficult. With the daily onslaught of new and sexy apps out to help you get organized, it’s hard to settle on just one. Don’t get stuck in continual evaluation analysis paralysis, hopping from one solution or software package to another, relentlessly re-working your process for the sake of finding the perfect system. Don’t let Shiny New Thing seduce you. Stick to what works.
Speaking of work, remember: No personal organizer is going to do the work for you. You’ve got to work your system to keep your life in order - period, end of story.
Nicely put, G.
Related: I’ve always felt there was precisely one person who should feel compelled to try every squirrely system mentioned on 43 Folders: me. I doubt anyone at Bon Appetit expects you to prepare and consume every recipe they publish; likewise, Gina, me, and the world’s other productivity pr0nographers would never wish non-stop life refactoring upon any of you.
For the love of God, please take Gina’s advice — read broadly, choose mindfully, and rebuild from scratch really infrequently.