Recently, I started shaving with a Merkur HD "Classic" (pictured above). I started to realize the experience I got from using this shaver was vastly better than my previous multi-blade shaves. That got me thinking what was the new found appeal. It's more work, takes more time, and is less forgiving of mistakes. Using this shaver takes time to adjust and yet I'm shaving more often and feel way better after using it. I started to realize that my full concentration and focus went into shaving with it. Furthermore I feel really bad ass using it because it takes some skill and it feels so much more manly ;)

Then I started to think: what could this mean about tools in general? It seems that tools need to do the following:

• Make your people feel awesome - If you can create a tool or a culture where tools are supposed to give your team the feeling of kicking-ass-and-taking-names then you have made them much more effective at their jobs. It's obvious tools are created to help people be more efficient, but largely my experience has shown that most tools suck. The tool developers wrote it a long time ago, cut corners on the UI, or just designed it for engineers but its meant for marketers. These tools make people feel like they are burdened with the task and it actually reduces morale, takes more time, and slows down everything. 
• Make your people think - When you have a tool, force people to think about the task and be done with it. Now this is only possible if you allow them to feel kick-ass. Most people want to crush the tasks they're working on so they can move forward. Additionally, when you make sure that carelessness is heavily penalized, people will become more attentive. Finally, since they are more focused they'll get the job done faster thus serving as a self-fulfilling prophecy: using this tool makes me more awesome! 
• Simple with leverage - The tools need to have leverage. For example, I'm using one blade shaver but get a much closer shave than a multi-blade setup. The principle is the same, more blades = more irritation due to higher friction over my skin. Similarly, tools that are too complicated for one person suck. They require coordination which burdens each party and causes delays & deadlocks in the system. However, if you can create simple tools that achieve the task with less people that's a win. AND when you have a task that previously took 3 people into a tool one person uses, that's the ultimate bad-ass feeling. 

Next time you build a tool, think is this going to make the users feel kick-ass!

(photo credit: Charlie Esser)

If you've ever shared living space with others, you're quite aware of the problem: Dishes in the sink! It's always been a problem ever year (mostly because I've had different roommates every year). This year I ended up diagnosing the problem and it the way it starts is when the dishwasher is running someone innocently places their dish in the sink (after all the dishwasher is running). Then the next person comes up and sees a dish so places his/her dish and so on. All of a sudden, the dish is full because everyone saw a dish in the sink and thought “Why should I wash all these dishes?” Additionally, until the sink is full the new standard to balance a stacking act of dishes. Then finally, the situation worsens until everyone realizes that the stack is dangerously high and then drama ensues over who has to wash all the dishes.

This is an interesting problem as it happens all the time. It all starts with a simple situation when we can defer an action to another date due to the present state.  In the example of the dishes in sink, we have a queue to keep our dirty dishes until the dishwasher is clear. However, it turns out others are less opposed to moving dishes from sink → dishwasher than actually cleaning the dish. It turns out an easy solution is to clean the dish while the dishwasher is full and leave that cleaned dish waiting to be placed in the dishwasher into the sink. Thus cleaning is the action we defer. Similarly, if we're faced with a situation where we can defer action, stop and think about how work will just compound. Rather just commit as many actions as possible to minimize future effort once you're ready to move your “dish” into the dishwasher.

Bottom Line: Minimize as much effort for the future because it'll eventually compound and “overflow your sink”.