How Do You Pick The Right Tool?

Father’s Day is fast approaching and with it comes the typical onslaught of marketing material about the best gift to get for dear old dad.

Somewhere in the mix of recent media madness I watched/read/heard something about tools and how they make great gifts but I can’t tell you who it was for or provide any more details than the vague description you just read.

What I can confirm is that the commercial might have been about a less than talented musician who married a reality television star and somehow that pin balled through my mind and turned into tool.

Decorum requires that I tell you it doesn’t take much for me to think about tools and that there is no relationship between my thinking of tools as a descriptor for people.

Ok, that might be stretching it a bit but I can assure you I really do like tools and gadgets.

You can blame attribute that to my father who long ago taught me the art of slowly walking down each aisle at hardware stores because you just never know what you might find.

The old man might also be the same guy who once yelled at me about the importance of choosing the right tool for the job and to understand the difference between a soft touch and brute force.

Someone do me a favor and make a note to remind him that I would never yell at my children about such things because I am a shy, quiet and introspective man. 🙂

How Do You Pick The Right Tool?

The fine folks over at Dadgifts.com contacted me a short while ago and asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a product for them.

After spending some time checking out their catalog and determining a review would give me the option to mesh my love for tools/gadgets with my love for writing I said I would be happy to do so and made the appropriate arrangements.

Ten minutes later I created my own deadline and put a note on Google Calendar to remind me that I needed to write this post.

It included a note to myself about how I could make this a funny post or take an approach where I would use the tool with my kids and turn the post into a recounting of a nice teaching moment.

That sucker would have been great, especially when I referenced the King quote above and talked about how my smartphone, tablet and computer ensure that I always have my writing tools with me.

The plan was to move from there into a conversation about how the Mo-Tool Axe has been great because it can handle so many different activities.

After that we’d shift into a discussion about how nice it is to have a multi-use tool for those moments where you don’t have access to your entire tool set.

Did you notice I said it would have been nice?

Yeah, it would have I forgot to set a reminder on my calendar and the day that I had planned on writing came and went.

Too much was going on and I was too busy to carve out time to write and so the post just didn’t happen and then fate kicked in.

I was on the road and ran into a situation where someone needed a pliers and a hammer.  Just a few hours later I needed a bottle opener and a knife to cut something open.

And just like that the tool in the pictures below had to be taken out of its case and used.

and

Do I Like It?

The answer is I do like it.

I don’t see it as replacement for individual tools.

If I need to use a hammer/pliers/screwdriver and I have a choice between using a standalone hammer/pliers/screwdriver I’ll probably chose the standalone because chances are I can do a better and faster job with it than with the multi-tool.

But you can’t anticipate every situation and there are certainly times when I’ll want to have some tools with me but be restricted by space.

The Mo-Tool Axe will absolutely come in handy for those moments.

If you are someone who doesn’t like to work with your hands and prefers to have a minimal number of tools you could certainly try to take advantage of the multi-tool functionality of the Mo-Tool Axe.

Again I am not convinced that a regular hammer or screwdriver won’t be a better option sometimes, but then again I am also the guy who talks about how the utility of a tool is contingent upon the skill of the person using it.

Disclosure: I received a Mo-Tool Axe in exchange for the review but although sponsored all opinions are mine, including this one: The National League plays a purer form of baseball because they do not use a D.H. Oh, and let’s not forget to mention the Cheatriots and Deflategate…