How to combat and avoid tool fatigue
Tools are meant to make our lives easier and expedite our processes. But tool fatigue can easily happen when your team is inundated with them - how can you keep tool fatigue at bay?
“Have you updated your progress in Asana?”
“Make sure you add those contacts to folk!”
“Create these 3 new segments in HubSpot.”
*Slack message ding*
Do these sentences (and sound) make your heart race with feelings of anxiety? You might be suffering from tool fatigue and may be entitled to compensation.
The tools that we use are meant to make our lives easier. They were designed to keep us engaged with our teams and projects and make us all the more efficient. But what happens when tools make us inefficient?
Although it is important to utilize tools to ensure that everyone stays informed and has access to information about company policies, projects, and more, excessive reliance on such tools can in fact hinder productivity.
Think about it. When was the last time you found yourself updating multiple systems with duplicate information? Or got pulled out of a flow state because you kept getting notifications from multiple tools at once? Or needed to add “put X information in Y tool” to your to-do list because you just couldn’t seem to remember? There is an inflection point when working with a tool simply becomes busy work that adds to your to-do list, as opposed to something that makes your to-do list shorter. This can lead to less innovative problem-solving and less time to complete tasks that actually matter.
If you’re using more than one tool for the same purpose, you’re potentially wasting time, energy, and creativity. Because of this, it’s important to understand how your team is using the tools you have, whether you’re using too many, and if there are better tools for what you need to accomplish.
how DO you avoid tool fatigue on your team?
Conduct periodic tool audits to evaluate how employees utilize various tools, assess if they are maximizing their time effectively, identify any potential redundancies or overlaps in functionality, and gather insights on overall usage patterns.
Why This Works
We choose the tools we use in various ways, whether it’s a recommendation from a similar business to a member of our team or good ol’ fashioned research. We tend to keep the tools that we use long after they’re actually useful because onboarding and offboarding tools takes time, from training employees to use the new tool to migrating all of your information from one to another. In this way, companies may continue to use outdated systems, costing money, time, and frustration, and eventually leading to a more inefficient workflow.
Tool fatigue can be sneaky. Just like burnout, you may not realize that your team is dealing with it until it is fully impacting productivity. Develop good practices early by putting regular audits in place to support your team.
Why Do This Now
Implementing a cadence of regular tool audits now only saves your team time. The sooner you begin this process, the sooner you can start making decisions more deliberately and intentionally.
The long-term, perpetual results will be happier team members, increased productivity, and more room for innovation. Below, you will see a paraphrased “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” created for innovation and creativity in the workplace.
Obviously, employees need space and energy to innovate. If they are constantly overwhelmed and can hardly keep their heads above water, they will struggle to find the space to be creative. Next, they need to work on innately creative projects – creativity begets creativity and busy work begets busy work.
Tool fatigue can gut your team’s creativity right at these basic two rungs. If all your team members are doing is routinely updating tools, they will not have the time, energy, or momentum to think creatively.
Learn how to appropriately choose tools for your team to keep them from getting into this rut of busy work.
how We Do: Be intentional when choosing new tools to onboard.
Being intentional about choosing your tools
Onboarding tools can too often be a clumsy, ill-thought-out process (unless you’ve read last week’s newsletter). We feel as though we urgently need one particular feature, so we haphazardly choose a tool with that feature without considering the broader effect this might have on our team.
Tools 🛠️
Aha! Not so fast.
Obviously, there are no specific tools to initially recommend, as this is an individual choice for each company. Instead, make a list of each of the tasks you want to automate or simplify with tools and start researching different options for each. See where there is overlap and where you can use one tool to serve several purposes. This will help you avoid choosing too many different tools when you could consolidate or, worse, several tools for the same task. Do not bog down your team by using several tools that serve the same purpose!
To paraphrase Nick Miller from New Girl, “YOU GET ONE CRM TOOL! THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS!”
That said, to further your efforts to build processes and implement an audit approach, consider Typeform, Google Forms, or SurveyMonkey to conduct anonymous internal team surveys that you can then use to inform decision-making. For face-to-face or web meetings, use a transcription note-taker such as Otter.ai to catalog and refer back to call notes. Lastly, as part of your holistic review, consider Lluna to gain a 30,000 foot-view of how your team prefers to work to ensure that tools are complementary to their approach.
Rules (Process) 📝
Be deliberate about which tools you onboard. Don’t take on new tools that will simply make your team do more work. Develop a template of questions to ask yourself before onboarding a new tool.
Be vigilant. Communicate often with your team members and stay on the lookout for tool fatigue on your team. Here are some things to look out for:
Are people regularly struggling to use the tools you have?
Do any tools have low engagement?
Do team members need to be reminded regularly to log information in those tools?
Do people seem stressed when onboarding a new tool?
Has the onboarding of new tools correlated to decreased productivity?
Do your employees need to check multiple tools for information?
Be proactive if you can, reactive if you need to be. Ideally, the implementation of regular tool audits will keep your teams from suffering from tool fatigue, however, if they already are, you may need to work to make some reactive changes.
Proactive: regular tool audits
Proactive: demos/trials with certain groups at your organization when you consider adding a new tool. If a tool does not work for a subset of people at your company, odds are it will be even more taxing for the entire company
Reactive: offboarding unnecessary tools
Pro/Reactive: give one person/team ownership of a tool
Pro/Reactive: give your team concrete expectations about tool notifications and alerts
Be flexible. Your team may be already dealing with tool fatigue and wasting time trying to keep up with all of the tools that they’re supposed to be using. If you do see signs of fatigue, be open to changing up your processes.
Don’t get overcome by tool FOMO. Just because a new tool is on the market, doesn’t mean you have to implement it. If your team likes the tool that they’re using and it’s making the team more productive, don’t change it! Use what works for you and don’t become tempted to jump to the newest thing just because it’s new.
People 🫶
Assuming that you cannot hire a tool-savant consultant (not a real job, as far as we know, yet…) to perform a regular tool audit, expand the scope of your team to define a tool audit as a core responsibility of a team member or consider outsourcing to a generalist or fractional support, as needed. This can be as high touch as meeting with each employee to understand their tool usage or as low touch as establishing a cadence of feedback.
As with any great generalist, this individual should have high visibility to as many departments/job functions as possible.
The goal of this audit is to make sure that these tools are being used for their intended purpose and saving time as opposed to costing employees time. Focus on:
Who is using which tools
How each tool is being used (and if everyone is using it in the same manner)
If specific tools are routinely forgotten
If logging information is seen as beneficial or time-consuming
Empower this individual to report back to the head of each team detailing how effectively their team is using tools and make recommendations as necessary.
Tool fatigue as a startup generalist
For a startup generalist managing several clients using varying tools, tool fatigue can be uniquely challenging.
It’s important for a startup generalist to maintain expertise by using sites like Product Hunt and Startup CPG to keep current with the best and latest tools and be able to communicate their value to founders. Using this knowledge, they can guide founders to use the proper tools for their unique needs.
As a founder, it can be beneficial to take advantage of a Startup Generalist’s experiences using various tools. Get their advice about what’s worked well and what hasn’t worked elsewhere. If they spend a large portion of their day in a specific tool, they’ll be able to provide value from day one. If you’re trying to decide between tools to onboard, consider a startup generalist to be a valuable resource alongside your full-time staff.
Take It Up A Level
Using AI to Improve how You Do:
What do you actually need tools for? Check in with your employees new and old to see which parts of their job they enjoy and which they don’t. There could be an opportunity for AI to help them with pesky tasks that they don’t like, or even the opposite – maybe they want to help take over something that AI is currently doing for your team. Give your team more work they do want and cleave the fat of what they don’t.
Any time you can segment who gets which notifications, do so. Whether that’s adding a certain condition to a Zapier “zap” or giving only specific people access to a Gmail account, use the filters of the tools at your disposal to minimize tool fatigue by keeping access tight to those who need it.
Going deeper on what you know
Before deciding to fully abandon a tool you are currently using or adopt a new tool solely for a specific feature, take the time to explore whether any new features have been released for your existing tool stack that could be beneficial. Old tools often receive regular updates with new features and integrations, so if there is something you feel is missing, upgrading your familiar tool might be sufficient instead of introducing something new that requires additional learning for your team.
To be proactive regarding new features for the tools you’re already using, engage with their support teams, read about their current roadmaps, and even suggest new features you might need!
Actually Actionable
Nice article. Now what?
We’ve taken the ideas above and created an action plan for you and your team.
Evaluate your current tool usage by performing a regular tool audit.
Appoint a team member as your tool expert. Have them consult with others to gain a better understanding of your team’s tool stack. Task them to learn about tool usage, needs, and how they’re feeling. Have them report their findings back to you or a core leadership group. (5 Hours over 1 Week)
Send surveys and schedule meetings or calls with team members to review overall findings and hone in on specific themes.
This doesn’t stop after only one audit! Decide how frequently (monthly, quarterly, annually) you should be conducting this audit and keep up with it, depending on how large your team is and how often you are onboarding new tools. Remember: this is a commitment to your employees, their happiness, and their productivity!
Research alternative tools if particular tools are giving your team tool fatigue. There are plenty out there that can replace the ones that you’re currently using. If there is a feature that’s missing or a way to combine two tools, find a tool that can do what you want!
Agenda:
Meeting 1: Have your resident tool expert speak with the relevant parties about tool options before beginning the onboarding or trial process (30 Minutes)
Meeting 2: After speaking with necessary team leads, and deciding which tools would be the best for specific use cases, establish a tool onboarding plan and present it to relevant parties (30 Minutes)
Align how everyone is using their tools post-audit. Make sure that everyone is using them in the same way and knows when and how to update them.
Agenda:
Training/info session: have the tool expert bring relevant teams into a session to fully understand how they’re currently using their tools and reinform proper usage (2 Hours)
Engage account managers from specific tools to assist with training to ensure your team is comfortable with the tool and maximizing its capabilities (1 Hour)
Communicate with your employees.
Agenda:
Meeting 1/Roundtable: Let employees know that you’ll be onboarding a new tool and set clear expectations. Let them know that it’s okay to pause tool alerts throughout the day for deliberate focus time. If there are times you need them to be available, be clear that this is the expectation, but give them space to work independently as well (30 Minutes)
Meeting 2: Check in with employees to ensure that they have the space, time, and energy to be creative and innovative (Multiple 30-minute 1:1)
Wrap-Up
“There’s an app for that.”
With much of the workforce preferring remote work and AI advancing at a rapid pace, there are a dizzying number of tools on the market, and that number grows exponentially by the day. Since onboarding and offboarding tools can be cumbersome and time-consuming, companies will often choose to stick with the tools they have, even after they are no longer useful, or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, try every new tool that drops. Either way, this can cost teams so much time and energy that they are not as productive or innovative as they could be. Appointing someone responsible for managing tool usage and adoption, alongside a regular tool audit and being more deliberate about onboarding new tools will help keep your team running smoothly and lower the chances of tool fatigue.
Writer: Renata
Collaborators: Caleigh & Scott
Thoughts on a topic that you would like us to cover in a future issue - we would love to hear from you: founder@weofalltrades.com