The tools don't matter (much)
Switching tools feels like progress because it is measurable. Taste is the bottleneck, and it has no changelog.
Twice a year a new tool promises to change how we design, and twice a year the timeline fills with migration threads. I have switched enough times to report the result: my work looked exactly as good in the old tool, and exactly as good in the new one.
Why switching feels productive
Learning a tool has visible progress — shortcuts memorized, features unlocked. Developing taste has none. So the ambitious part of us reaches for the ladder with rungs, even though it leans against the wrong wall.
The designers I admire are nearly tool-agnostic. Their advantage is a thousand small judgments — where the line breaks, when the gray is too dark, which idea dies. No tool makes those calls.
What actually compounds
Copy the work you love by hand. Ship things and watch strangers use them. Read outside design. Keep a folder of surfaces that stopped you and write one line about why. Boring, slow, unmeasurable — and the only changelog that matters.