A Fundamental Truth About Productivity Tools

Listicles, agile, and process.

Photo by Luke Peters on Unsplash

I wrote a blog post on Medium a few years ago that caught some traction. It was all about productivity tools. In fact, it was one of those click-baity listicles.

People commented about the tools and asked tons of questions. I also got a ton of people who were working on developing their own tools and wanted me to add theirs to the list for them.

Notice how I’m not linking you to the article? That’s on purpose.

Across the teams and individuals I’ve worked with, not one single time has a productivity tool been what makes that team or individual productive.

Tools can ease the friction of processes or reduce extra work, that’s for certain. The emotional experience we have when a piece of software reduces some of the weight in our lives is pretty magical—but it will never turn an unproductive person into a productive one.

The software is not the cure for bad process.

(The ineffectiveness is coming from inside the house. 😉)

If you’re looking to change the way you operate, that’s different.

There are many frameworks that work for different people and teams.

Scrum. Kanban. David Allen’s Getting Things Done system.

Just keep in mind that the tools that go with them are there to reduce friction and make those systems work better. And that’s it.

Your job is to build a system of work first. The tools just help you along the way.