Productivity Systems: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2026-01-06

Why Tech Is Obsessed With Productivity

Productivity carries a strange amount of weight in tech.

Deadlines move fast. Technologies change constantly. There’s always something new to learn, rebuild, refactor, or “optimise.” Being busy is common; being effective is harder. So naturally, productivity becomes a skill in its own right.

I was introduced to this early.

On paper, it all made perfect sense. If you plan better, prioritise clearly, and manage your time well, good outcomes should follow.

One of the very first classes I took during my studies was Professional Practice. It focused on personal effectiveness, communication, and how to operate professionally in a technical environment. We covered things like SMART goals, prioritisation frameworks, scheduling techniques, and systems like Getting Things Done (GTD).

Every year there’s a new system, a new framework, a new promise that this app or that method will finally unlock focus, consistency, and momentum. Task managers multiply. Dashboards grow. Systems become systems to manage systems.

I’ve been there.

The Ugly: A Thousand Ways to Be Productive

If you spend more than five minutes around tech, creators, or “build in public”, productivity advice starts to feel unavoidable.

There’s no shortage of techniques, frameworks, and tools promising to help you plan better, focus harder, and get more done. Most of them are well-intentioned. Many of them are genuinely useful. The problem isn’t quality, it’s quantity.

A few of the most common approaches you’ll hear about:

Getting Things Done (GTD) - Capture everything, clarify it, organise it, review it, execute. Tools often associated with this include apps like Todoist, Things, OmniFocus and Notion. I recommend Todoist
Eat the Frog - Start the day by tackling the hardest or most important task first. Often paired with simple daily planners, paper notebooks or minimal task apps.
Pomodoro - Work in focused time blocks with short breaks. Popular tools include Pomofocus, Forest, Focus To-Do, and countless built-in timers. I recommend Pomofocus
Kanban & Task Boards - Visualise work in progress and limit active tasks. Common tools here are Trello, Jira, ClickUp, and Notion Boards. I recommend Trello
The Eisenhower Matrix - prioritise based on urgency vs importance. Implemented via templates, spreadsheets, whiteboards, or apps like Eisenhower.me.
Second Brain Systems - Capture notes, ideas, references and insights indefinitely. Usually built with tools like Notion, Obsidian, Roam Research or Evernote.I recommend Obsidian

Each technique solves a real problem. Each tool exists for a reason.

None of these are bad. Most of them are genuinely useful in isolation

Taken together, though, they form a crowded ecosystem of overlapping ideas, similar promises, and endless configuration options. Different names, different interfaces, often addressing the same underlying needs.

This is the ugly side of productivity culture in tech, not bad tools, but too many ways to be told there’s a better way.

Thats where things started to fall apart for me.

The Bad: Where Productivity Systems Started to Break Down

Most productivity systems are designed to solve a specific problem.

Some help with capture. Some help with prioritisation. Some help with focus or follow-through.

The trouble begins when these systems are treated as complete solutions. Or worse, when multiple systems are stacked on top of each other without clear boundaries.

A few common breakdown points tend to appear.

Over-Planning becomes the Work

Time is spent refining lists, reshaping boards, and reorganising dashboards, with the promise that real work will begin once the system is “right.”

Focus gets fragmented.

Tasks live in one app, notes in another, schedules somewhere else. The work itself becomes scattered, and simply staying oriented starts to cost energy.

Everything feels urgent.

Without strong prioritisation, small tasks sit alongside important ones. Visibility becomes urgency, and busy starts to masquerade as progress.

Captured ideas turn into pressure.

Backlogs grow. Unchecked tasks linger. What began as a way to reduce mental load quietly adds to it.

The system itself needs managing.

Reviews, pruning, and maintenance become necessary just to keep things usable. Over time, the tool meant to support the work becomes another obligation.

At that point, productivity stops reducing friction, and starts creating it.

The Good: Shifting from Productive to Intentional

The real breakthrough wasn’t discovering a better framework.

It was letting go of the idea that one framework should run my entire life.

Instead, I built a small, deliberate stack, a handful of tools and methods, each with a single job.

Not everything needs to live in one app. Not everything needs a deadline. Not everything needs to be actionable today.

The system is intentionally compartmentalised.

1. Direction Before Tasks

Everything starts with direction, not to-do's.

Before I think about tasks, I review my broader goals and current focus areas. The aim is not to plan the week in detail. It's to decide what is the week for.

That decision does more work than any task list ever could.

2. Capture Without Pressure

I was a big fan of Pocket but I also didn't know what to do with all the articles I saved. I tried building a database in Notion, it got way too big.

Now Ideas, links, notes, and half-formed thoughts all go into an Ideas Vault

No judgement. No prioritisation. No expectation that I’ll act on them immediately, or ever.

This isn’t a task list. It’s a holding space.

Capturing ideas stopped feeling like creating future obligations, and started feeling like clearing mental RAM.

3. Choose The Thing That Matters, Build First

From everything active or possible, I choose one main project for the week.

One.

That removes negotiation and guilt. It may not even be to completing it. It's simply the thing that deserves the most attention this week.

Everything else becomes secondary by definition.

4. Seperate by Cognitive Load

Not all work costs the same mentally or warrants the same priority. My work naturally falls into four buckets:

Deep Build - The main project
Light Build - Admin, maintenance, and shaping ideas into plans for content, tools or resources
Open - Constrained exploration
Learning - Skill-building with clear outcome.

Each category gets time. None compete in same mental space.

5. Populate Priorties

Deep Build is first, everything else fits in around it.

I use Eisenhower style approach to determine priority tasks within each bucket, deciding whats important, whats urgent and what can wait.

This keeps the week realistic instead of aspirational and becomes my working to-do list.

6. Time Blocking

Finally, priorities become time.

I identify time blocks I'm available to work then distribute the buckets across the week.

Deep Build 55-60%
Light Build 20-30%
Learning 10-15%
Open 5-10%

Once it's on the calendar, the decision making is done.

Why This Works for Me

This system works because it respects how attention actually functions.

I don't wake up deciding what to do, that decision has alread been made. I don't treat ideas as obligations. I don't pretend every day has the same energy. I don't confuse motion with progress.

By seperating direction, intake, prioritisation and execution, the system removes friction instead of adding it. Each part has a clear job, and nothing is forced to compete for attention at the same time.

The biggest change hasn't been output.

It's been headspace.

I'm no longer overwhelmend by lists or backlogs. No procrastination because the work is clearer. I don't burn energy renegotiating what deserves the focus.

Productivity stopped being the goal.

The system didn't make me superhuman.

It just made it harder to waste time pretending I was being productive.