Do you really need it?

Recently, I stumbled upon a new tool that I was initially hooked on. This tool has features that seemed really interesting to me. It promised me time saving in some areas and in some cases a easier way of doing certain things. Within minutes I was logged in, watching the service video, tested it a bit, and was still excited.

When I thought about how to integrate the tool into my workflow, my first doubts came up. Sure, it can be great to use the features of the tool and do some work with it. But does it make other tools obsolete? Probably not. You just use another one, which may offer a small advantage, but also means more effort (the other tools will continue to be used). So why should I use this tool? Suddenly more of the advantages did not seem that important and efficient anymore, but I found more disadvantages and signed off again.

This experience brought me to further considerations. How many of the tools we use every now and then do we really need? When it comes to SEO, for example, there is a folder full of tools in my bookmarks. From keyword research on backlink checker and extensive on-page tools there is everything. Some things are even double and triple, just because one tool offers a little extra that another one does not have. But how often do you need these little extras and are they really important?

If you think a little further, check your workflows and be honest, you notice very quickly: We do not need many tools that we use at all. With other solutions we would come to a result much faster, although perhaps with two clicks more or less comfort. A good example of this is cloud spaces. Free space is offered everywhere and of course we like to do that. Before you know it, you have spread your data across four or five different cloud services. And if you then need something, start the big search, which costs time. If you limited yourself to a service, you would save a lot of time – and that pays off even if you spend a little money on the storage space.

Do you also find tools that actually bring more work than use?

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