Working with good tools makes a job more enjoyable (or at least more tolerable). Unfortunately, I often spend too much time thinking about the tools and not enough time thinking about (or doing) the job.
How many times have you thought, “If only I had Tool/Camera/Computer X, then I would be able to do Y”? In talking with a friend the other day, he told me about a conversation he had with his wife the other day. He was looking at camera gear online and mentioned there was a new camera he wanted. His wife mentioned the empty picture frames she had bought him a year earlier for Christmas. They were still empty and perhaps he should think about filling them with either a) pictures he’s already shot, or b) pictures he has yet to shoot with his existing (and perfectly nice) camera gear.
After realizing his wife was right, he put new camera gear down a bit on his mental future purchases list.
All of that being said, there is something to be said about having nice equipment to do a job. If you earn your income from the use of a particular piece of equipment (e.g., a professional photographer’s camera) it makes sense to buy what you need to excel in your field.
For the hobbiest (a category I fall into in most pursuits), I’ve learned two things about equipment. First, better equipment rarely leads to better results. When you think about the history of creative pursuits, much of what we deem excellent was created with tools we would consider sub-par today.
Second, if you were to take the time required to earn the money to buy a $250 tool and invest the same time into learning a new skill in a particular hobby you most likely take better pictures, draw better drawings, write better stories, or do whatever else you might want to do better.
When you have reached a skill level that requires a different tool in order to advance, start thinking about what to purchase. Before you’ve extracted the value out of your existing tools, it may be foolish to think better tools will suddenly give you super-creative powers.
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