Our business and personal lives would be vastly different today without technology. The internet, websites, social media platforms, and all the gadgets that go with, now define at least part of who we are, how we communicate, what we do, and how we do what we do. On our websites, we have plugins. With social media, we have management tools and apps. For marketing, we have design software and analytics reporting capabilities.

We now have all these ways to maximize our efficiency, effectiveness, creativity, and data, yet if most of us put down our smart phones and backed away from our MacBook Pros long enough to take a look around, we’d see that we aren’t that much further ahead than before we added all these “improvements” to our lives.

So why is that? Here are 4 reasons that may help explain.

• We’re wasting time signing up and testing every new ‘gotta have’ tool I could easily spend a couple hours a day, several days each week, just trying out new free and paid platforms and apps. But who has that kind of time? And what are the chances that every one of those acclaimed new tools are going to revolutionize the way you work? You’d be better off figuring out in what area you lacking, and testing out a couple tools for only that. Or perhaps take a closer look at what kinds of services you’ve already signed up for. You might be able to get the help or data you need from something you already use.

• We’re not looking for overlap I see this a lot with WordPress plugins, and social media apps and online tools. Someone might have Jetpack installed on their WordPress site, for example, plus 3 more plugins that individually duplicate 3 functions Jetpack already performs. Twitter follower and account analysis tools are another frequent culprit here. Basically, there are a whole lot of Twitter tools that provide nearly the same exact services.

• We’re trying too hard to make things “easy” It could be lengthy account set ups and steep learning curves, or it might be trying to force the use of (Insert: THE GREATEST TOOL EVER MADE) that just doesn’t integrate well with how you work. Either way, if it’s too hard to get up and going with it, it’s probably not for you.

• There’s so much it CAN do, but how much is useful to you? If your newest social media management subscription CAN link up 6 different platforms, but you only use 3, then you aren’t using it to its fullest potential. If you test out a graphic design tool that gives you the ability to create 10 different styles of graphics, but you primarily use photos you take for yourself and touch up with your favorite photo app on your phone, then you don’t have much need for it. If you locate and download the very best SEO plugin, but you don’t know the first thing about SEO, it’s not going to do you much good.

I have only a handful of “must haves” tools and apps that are my tried and trues. But I know that I constantly feel like I need to try the supposedly ALLCAPSAWESOME-est new products out there. I try hard to stop myself from getting sucked in, though, because I’ve got all my true needs covered, and with tools that jive with my personal work style.

So don’t hesitate to just say no to all the shiny new objects out there.

Where are you on the scale of “Gotta Try It to Nah, I’m Good”?