When Productivity Tools Make the Problem Worse

Everyone uses productivity tools to make work more rewarding, but some people end using productivity tools specifically to stimulate reward independent of actually getting work done.

This is probably you if you find yourself bouncing from tool to tool, loving the first few weeks of it but then running into a wall and starting over

This usually happens for people who require a lot of reward to do work, and for whom new tools and systems become an “approved” form of procrastination. It also happens when we become attuned to how great trying a new system feels

Trying new tools stimulates our dopamine system which increases your motivation and ability to expend cognitive effort on tasks. It also breaks old conditioning you’ve developed with your previous tools which gets gradually associated with procrastination and piles of work left undone.

Once you realize that you’re using productivity tools to stimulate the reward centers in your brain it gives you a lot more power to make different choices