If you read my blog even a little, you’ll probably have guess by now my unhealthy obsession with the 37Signals way of thinking, working and doing. To be frank, this wasn’t always the case.
When I first approached a 37S product, namely Backpack, I signed up for a free account and used it for about a half hour. Then I dropped it. Smacked it, to be precise. I was in the “trying-every-app-that-moves” era, so I didn’t like it, because it was too restricting, it was lacking features, it was too simple and yada yada. Or so I thought.
After a few months I decided to give Backpack a second chance. It had matured, it had collected raving reviews, it was holding a high rank among the GTD crowd, so I succumbed. Then I found out, in my surprise, that Backpack works, after all.
Just give it time. Sure, it seems to lack features. And Ruby on Rails can be laggy at times. But it has found a niche in my digital life that no other online tool has managed to fill.
Interesting links that pop into my screen while at work and need some “private” time: Backpack Inbox for later. Work todo lists and notes and drafts and mockups and files I want to share, @Work. Stuff that I wanna buy someday, an image gallery @Shopping. Blogs posts and drafts and ideas, @Blog.
It’s a terrific tool for the day-to-day digital notetaking, while the new multi-user features that were recently added make it a solid small company Intranet solution, with calendars, whiteboards, shared editing.
Thing is, I don’t think I ever fell in love with this product. I never had an infatuation that faded after time (I tend to do that a lot with applications, both online and offline). My Backpack love grew after quite some time of working with it, so I don’t see us getting a divorce anytime soon.
It’s not only the finished product, it’s the 37S way of thinking: declutter, simplicity, straightforward are some of the words that pop in your mind while using its products, be it Backpack, Basecamp or Highrise.
P.S. The Backpack links above are affiliate, but what I wrote are my true feelings on this product.
