Apps make our lives easier…but they aren’t going to actually do the heavy lifting for us.
“I was really hoping that you had some type of app that you used for managing your network. Spreadsheets don’t work for me” he said.
Like anyone who takes pride in their work, I took some time to chew on this comment during my subway ride home…
The reason the spreadsheet “didn’t work for him” is because he wasn’t willing to give that system the diligence and care it deserved. It wasn’t due to it being over-complicated or ineffective.
If you’re serious about anything in your life, the existence of a mechanism to make it easier should never prevent you from achieving success. If it does, you need to step it up or come to terms with the fact that you’re not that serious about it. Even when an app does exist, the effectiveness of any system relies upon the consistent execution of the process.
I feel like the firehouse of apps that are making our lives easier are great in that they do exactly that. Though I fear that amongst some it has created an expectation that magic bullets should exist anytime something is less than incredibly easy to do.
Their is a reason that the things we deem worth doing are typically hard. It’s because we desire what is scarce. Having a great body, a successful career, or even a vibrant, powerful network are scarce. That’s one reason we attribute value to them. Conversely, things that are very easy typically yield common outcomes/results which is often why they’re not as desirable.
If you find yourself longing for certain apps because you’re coming up short I think you need to ask yourself this question: Is the presence of an app really the issue or your commitment to the labor it takes to be successful?
