Ok, maybe not tyrants, but the alliteration was too good to pass up.
Your tools are dictators. They dictate.
Every tool you use imposes certain processes for the work you do.
Say you wanted to cut a board in half.
You could use a regular handsaw. That means you need to move it back and forth, repeatedly, until you’ve cut through the board.
If instead you used an electric circular saw, you would be required to plug it in, pull the trigger, and move it across the wood until the cut was complete. With appropriate safety precautions, of course.
You can’t swap tactics, leaving the electric saw unplugged and trying to move it back and forth over the board. It just wouldn’t work. And there is no way to plug the hand saw in.
Now, we apply the concept to planning.
If you try to track and plan your work with a todo app, you’ll be forced into certain processes – things like reviewing all your lists, at the right times. If you don’t, well, you won’t get your work done.
If you use a calendar primarily, then you have to schedule things, set start and end times. You can rely on reminders, but only if you set them up.
If you use both, you now have an extra decision you need to make with anything you want to get done: where does it go, the calendar or a todo list?
This is one of the reasons that people are always on the lookout for new tools when it comes to planning – the processes their current tools force on them are not natural, simple, or humane.
They’re not natural because they don’t flow or induce flow.
They’re not simple, ever. And despite tech’s promise to be more usable, the electronic tools are often more complicated than plain pen and paper.
They’re not humane, as they don’t work at a level that takes advantage of human strengths and compensates for human weaknesses.
Cue aims to be all of the things these tools are not: humane, simple, and natural.
Check it out.