If you get heavily involved in the writing community, you have to be careful. Why? Because there is a whole sub-industry devoted to writing tools that supposedly help you be more productive and creative.

Are many of these helpful? Yes, of course. For example, I swear by the writing app Scrivener. I write almost everything in Scrivener and cannot imagine doing my writing without it. It’s an amazing tool to help you organize your material, especially for bigger projects.

Google docs? Not so much. I find Google docs to be clunky and slow, and it’s very hard to quickly access material in Google docs if you have a lot of different pieces of information tied to a project.

But that’s just my opinion, of course. My opinion and $1.50 will get you a drink from a vending machine. You have to do what works for YOU.

It’s important to not get too obsessed with specific writing tools. The only measure you should use to determine whether a tool or app is good is whether it helps you get your writing done easier.

John Steinbeck once said, “Pencils must be round. A hexagonal pencil cuts my fingers after a long day.” Well, that was true for HIM but it may not have been true for every writer. The point is to figure out what helps you, then get busy writing.

Don’t get paralyzed by indecision. Just pick something and start writing. Focus on the work and don’t get too hung up on what tools everybody else is using.

Daily Question: Are you focusing on doing the work instead of over-analyzing which writing tools to use?