The maintenance tax

A useful tool has two futures: what it might do for me and what it will need from me to keep doing it.

The first is easy to enjoy. Something that used to take several steps becomes a button. A piece of information becomes easy to find. A small application makes part of the day lighter.

The second arrives in pieces. An account needs attention. A service changes how it works. A feature introduces another decision about what the tool should become. I think of this as a maintenance tax: part of the cost of owning something useful.

The cost between repairs

Suppose a tool saves ten minutes each week and needs half an hour of attention each month. That looks like a good exchange. A collection of tools with the same promise might look good too.

The arithmetic leaves out when they need me. A repair can interrupt work that requires an entirely different kind of attention. Before fixing it, I may have to remember how the tool works and why it was built that way. After fixing it, I still have to find my way back to the work I left.

The time spent repairing a tool can be smaller than the interruption it creates. That is what a collection of individually sensible tools can make difficult to see.

It makes me value a modest quality: how quietly something remains useful. A tool that does its job without repeatedly becoming a project leaves room for the thing it was meant to support.

What I want to keep alive

Building can be worthwhile even when it saves no time. There is pleasure in making something and knowledge in understanding how it works. I don't need every creative pursuit to justify itself through efficiency.

I do want to distinguish enjoying the making from wanting the responsibility of keeping it alive. Finishing a project may create a continuing claim on attention, especially once someone depends on it.

That changes what a smaller version offers. Leaving out a feature can preserve the simplicity that made the tool worth having. Retiring a tool can release attention even if the tool still works.

When I look at a collection of tools, I want to ask what it leaves available. Is there time to think? Room to work? Enough attention to make something new? The collection can be impressive while leaving very little of that behind.