I’ve been thinking about all the choices I have in a different context and how having all those choices is pretty counter-productive. I have a lot of apps on my phone with several duplicates for a couple functions. For example, for social (personal) stuff I have –
- Path
- Google+
Of those three, Facebook is the only one with real traction for me, despite my preference for Path as a better app for social sharing (in theory, at least). I find myself wondering more and more why I still have Path and Google+ on my phone when I could still share meaningfully with just Facebook.
Take it a step in a different direction. I have Foursquare and Swarm to find friends and places to eat/shop/fill-up alongside Facebook which, although it doesn’t quite match Foursquare, covers quite a bit of ground. Maybe I could simplify some more and just use Facebook for location-based stuff too?
The same thing applies to productivity stuff too. Why bother with iWork when I use Google Apps far more anyway? I certainly don’t need Microsoft’s iOS app suite. On a related note, I’m not sure why I still have Simplenote or Drafts when I am pretty much an Evernote person for the most part with Byword for plain text notes (or perhaps Byword should give way to Drafts which is much more flexible anyway).
I could probably cut back on the apps on my devices by half to two thirds if I stopped thinking “I might want to use that one day” and really streamline my decisions when I just want to do something.
Do I really want to have to decide between 3 or 4 photo apps when I just want to take a photo?
I think Zuckerberg is right. It does sound silly when he explains why he wears a similar grey t-shirt every day but why waste that time and those thought cycles on deciding which t-shirt to wear when you have so much bigger and more important decisions to make?
What do you think?