I took this picture weeks ago intending to blog about my awesome little Leatherman Skeletool. Then Monday I lost it. It was on my desk at work and then it wasn’t. So yesterday, I bought a new one.

I bought the first after reading this review on Cool Tools. I had the old classic Leatherman and though I loved the idea of a multi-tool, I rarely used it. It was too heavy and it was too hard to get to the tools. I really only used 3 of the tools anyway: the knife, the screwdriver and the pliers.

That’s why the Skeletool is so great. It’s only a knife, screwdriver and pliers. It’s lightweight and the knife is on the outside of the handle. So you don’t have to open the whole thing and pry out the knife. As a bonus, it has a bottle opener / carabiner. It turns out that when you reduce a tool to its essentials and make it as light as possible, you increase its usefulness.

I use it so much that it was a no-brainer to get another one immediately. I went with the red one again though I was tempted to go for the black carbon fiber one.