Just make it easy

One time when I was working in a design office on campus, one of the seasoned graphic designers was trying to create some simple text document using Word. She was cursing how stupid Word is and how she can never find anything because she rarely ever uses it.

Then she realized and exclaimed, "Why am I making this in Word? Why don't I just use InDesign?" Even though InDesign is a much more complex application, because she was familiar with it and not with Word, it was easier for her to use InDesign.

She used what she knew and what she had, and made the whole process easier for herself.



I remembered this story while I was struggling to eat a Clif bar. You know when you rip open a sealed wrapper like this and it rips in like 4 pieces and each flap flops all over with melted chocolate/caramel/whatever and gets all over your fingers? I was struggling to keep the messy package neatly wrapped around my snack when I realized, "Why don't I just cut it? I have a scissors in my drawer, literally 6 inches from my hand. I'm not out in the wilderness with only my hands to cut into a package, I have a tool meant for this!"

There ya go. Make it easier for yourself. Wisdom for the day.