Applying Focus In Application Selection

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When making choices about the tools being used, software development and digital content creation can end up more complex than they need to be.

Sometimes projects include a bloated selection of applications. This requires team members to juggle between several to complete their tasks or to communicate with one another.

This is a problem in two aspects:

• There is no centralized system for core work tasks
• Cross-application navigation steps disturb one's focus

Ideally, there would be a single robust system centralized in one workspace to ensure efficiency. One can save a lot of time and effort by keeping the set of digital work environments to as small a number as possible.

A good example of this is streamlining content creation using Git. Here is one approach for version control in document composing and editing in a coding environment:

Composing text as Markdown files for documentation and blog content creation eliminates the need for a word processor. In this example, there are no Word documents cluttering up the folders, and editing the Markdown file itself creates a new version as changes are being committed to the Git repository.

The text is also technically formatted in an open-ended way. This makes it easy to embed in a web frame, blog platform or another such context in the future.

The time spent navigating between applications is also something to consider during project work. It might seem like a small thing, but switching between things repeatedly is always a break in one's focus. It is a definite step towards complexity instead of minimalism.

It's smart to have one's chain of tasks take place in a single environment as much as possible. This way, there are fewer chances for one's concentration to be disturbed (and favoring efficient, centralized processes has a better chance of becoming a good habit!).