Simplicity/Productivity - Maybe its time to ditch Microsoft Word

If you're like me a lot of time when you are looking to just get some basic writing done you're likely finding those "great" productivity features increasingly intruding and slowing you down. While a full featured word processor is extremely useful for dressing up documents they just seem to bog you down when all you really want to do is blast out that text.

Here's my suggestion whether you're on Windows or Mac OS/X = pull out your favorite basic text editor TextEdit on the Mac or WordPad on Windows and put an alias/shortcut on your dock/launch bar. For about a week try this experiment when you're looking to craft some basic text (<3 pages = which depending on your job is likely the bulk of your writing) then use that text editor as your work space. I've found that my ability to get things done has increased significantly as it takes away the annoying features which were meant to improve your experience and justify a software vendor continuing to invest in polishing software that was largely good enough.

Give it a shot and let me know how it works out.