Remember that big Google software/Apple hardware experiment I wrote about doing awhile ago? Yeah, it’s over now.

The setup was more or less fine but something didn’t feel right:

“I deeply admire people who create productive and useful routines for themselves and then stick to them without fail. That kind of discipline seems both otherworldly and incredibly important. For the next three months I’m going to explore a variety of different places in my life where I can install automation, routines, and rituals that can become habits.”

I wrote that. See the problem here?

The whole point of the quarterly retrospective and the creation of priority statements to guide my decision making for next three months is that if I don’t actually use them to guide my behavior then there’s really not much point in doing the exercise. As much as I tried to convince myself that sticking with this experiment for the next three months aligned with my stated priority I knew I was wrong. Completely changing my tech stack is pretty much the opposite of being consistent.

Therefore, I’ve reverted back to the majority of the apps I was using prior to my little experiment. And let me tell you, it’s like pulling on my favorite hoodie on a chilly afternoon. It just feels good and right.

I still stand behind the idea that making decisions about hardware and software is kind of like optimally equipping a video game character and I’ll still be experimenting with the best setup for me — I’ll just wait until one of my priority statements isn’t one that expressly challenges me to be consistent instead of farting around with new and unfamiliar things.

Anyway, back to being boring. — at least until July 1st!