Don’t manage your business like it’s my garage

“Buy cheap tools until you know what you really need from that tool, then buy the best version you can afford.”

Adam Savage

If you stick by this suggestion, as I have for years when it comes to hand tools, you’re going to end up with my garage. And that’s…not entirely a good thing. There’s some great stuff in there—and it’s crowded out by junk. When it comes time to track down the tools I need for a given task, sometimes I’ll end up grabbing one of the cheap tools even though I have a better one just because it’s within reach. And I’ll usually regret it, since the work will be harder, shoddier, and I might bleed a bit in the process.

What’s missing from this advice—what I haven’t done—is that once you’ve identified what you really need from a tool (even, and especially, if the answer is “nothing”), and acquired the best-fit version for yourself, you have to get rid of the old, cheap, dinky tools. Especially if they still kinda work. Because yes: you will keep using them.

But you’re probably not here to look for rotary hammer recommendations. (Though just in case, the Bosch GBH2-28L is a lovely, lively beast.)

It’s probably clear what I’m getting at here, but let’s make it explicit:

When you’ve opted to move past a couple of chained, brittle Zapier links and rolled your own automation pipeline, get rid of the old Zapier setup.

When you’ve restructured your org’s software delivery lifecycle away from enterprise-inflected Scrum to something more adaptive, get rid of your unneeded rituals (and maybe Jira too!).

Technical, architectural, and organization debt is only truly paid down when you fully get rid of what you’re replacing.

Otherwise, that old cruft will keep on living rent-free in your head. Just like it does in Dylan’s garage.