You need to love your tools. If you're doing any sort of business, then time is money, as the saying goes. And to make effective use of your time, you need to throw yourself into your work. And that all stems from what tools you use.
This really started making sense to me when Apple profiled 37signals about their work. I had been thinking about loving what you work with for awhile, but 37signals really made the thought more tangible for me. They maintain that working on a Mac helps them develop code faster. I think everything revolves around finding how you work best and then focusing on that.
Work should be a joy. Or, at the very least, you shouldn't dread your work. If you're an entreprenuer or make any sort of product that others use, this should really be taken to heart. I've found that working on a Mac does that for me. I love sitting down and working in TextMate or using AppleScript to simplify my life. To me, I'll spend the extra money so that I can feel excited about work.
Another example- on Good-Tutorials, I sell advertising. For the past year or two I almost hated filling out orders. Orders brought in cash, which is always great, but I had such a lackluster system- get an email, ask for details, fill in the details in a clumsy spreadsheet, and then hope that I remember to look back at the spreadsheet from time to time to see when the advertising's term had expired. It was not a joy to use, and it impacted my business. That long process resulted in delays- not conscious delays (who wants to miss out on revenue?), but the process was lengthy and a pain for me to use. This summer I started using Blinksale, an amazing online invoicing system. I can manage recurring billing through Blinksale so those who stick with me month-to-month will automatically get invoices, and it's such a joy to use the product that it's actually fun for me to go in and fill out new invoices. This means I can get to new advertisers in a timely fashion because I now love to do it. I've cut out the cludgy middleman I used to have, and now I think it will end up in greater returns in the long term.
This doesn't have to be strictly business-related, either. I used to have problems remembering dates or meetings or things like that, and then I got a smartphone over the summer so that I can sync my dates with iCal. I really hate my phone (that's another story entirely), but I did like that I could see my day at a glance, and that led to me using the system more. The result was that I'm more in control of my day-to-day life. Finding new solutions to pains leads to me working more efficiently in life. When I start running regularly again (which will be soon, I hope!), I think I'll look into the Nike + iPod integration for this same reason: it will help me stay motivated to run and to keep improving, because I would then have a great tool to help analyze my runs and goals.
If there's one lesson that's become a no-brainer over the years, it's that you can't stay frustrated if you see a better alternative. If it'll make you more productive and enjoy your tasks more, spend the few extra dollars up front, since it will probably pay for itself many times over in the future.