LEGOs and productivity: a study in parallels

The ubiquitous red brick. Three pips long, two pips wide. So many of us spend our childhood snapping these little Danish delights together to give wing to our creativity and dreams. Cars, houses, horses, and rocket ships; it never really mattered what we were building, only that we could.

LEGOs have always been synonymous with being the intersection between practical functionality and creative expression. In their early days, it required imagination to build, and sometimes to understand what was built (yes, that’s a ball made out of rectangles) but giving form to our concepts was within our reach. While we can still do that…things have changed.

Boxed kits with custom pieces, specialized forms, and unique connectors allow us to make things more realistic than ever before. Recently I completed a holiday gift I received of an orchid set in LEGOs. The directions were precise, the pieces flawless, and the resulting model is worthy of a place on the mantle. So why the struggle? Because that’s all that model can ever be.

You see, there isn’t a single “red brick” in it. All the pieces have specific places and specific jobs. Many could never be mistaken for anything but a flower petal. While you could push it out of it’s designed purpose to build something else, it wasn’t made for that in the first place. In the digital productivity space, it is the LEGO version of an app, not a platform.

Productivity tools in the early days focused on being versatile, open things. In many cases we were using tools not meant for the task at hand to accomplish our immediate needs (think about all those spreadsheet based task lists). With the advent of apps and the app economy, the pendulum has swung to the other side with derision placed on tools that are “unfocused” or “have a steep learning curve.”

There will always be a place for specialized tools. There will always be a place for open tools; ones able to adapt to a variety of needs and wants. The question arises though, does it make sense to spend time learning to tune an open tool or researching specialized tools? Unfortunately there is no clear cut answer. I do suggest taking a final lesson from the world of LEGOs when it comes to this.

No matter how specialized a LEGO kit is, it maintains compatibility with it’s generalized brethren. The “red block” can connect to the flower petal. You have the option to build what you want; making it your own creation still swims at the heart of the molded plastic. Apply this to your productivity tools and solutions.

Avoid walled gardens and solutions that are “the” answer. Pass over tools that prevent working with other tools. Skip flexibility for convenience sake. Your productivity is just that: yours. You need to be able to adapt and overcome challenges without your tools creating their own roadblocks in your system.

Explore the special tools. Learn about the solutions. At the end of the day though, make sure you ask, “where could the red brick go?”