Hex System
You have too many AI tools. You're paying for subscriptions you opened in a moment of enthusiasm three months ago, and the last time you logged into half of them was the day you signed up. The hex constraint is a simple rule that fixes this: pick six
Hex Proof
The hex is a constraint. Six tools, maximum, evaluated quarterly. On the surface, it sounds like a limitation — and it is. That's the point. A growing body of research in psychology, design, and organizational behavior demonstrates that constraints don't just coexist with creative output — they drive
Hex Proof
Theory is useful. Research is clarifying. But nothing lands like watching someone cut their tool stack in half and produce better work the same month. These are accounts from builders — sourced from community forums, Discord servers, and direct conversations — who made the counter-intuitive move of using fewer AI tools and
Hex Proof
You connected your AI writing assistant to your project management tool, which feeds into your email platform, which triggers a Slack notification when a draft is ready for review. It took a weekend to build. It worked perfectly for three weeks. Then it broke — silently, on a Tuesday — and you
Hex Proof
You're supposed to be writing. Instead, you're updating a Chrome extension, re-authenticating your API key because the session expired, and reading a changelog to figure out why your prompt template stopped working after last night's model update. This isn't a bug. This
Hex Proof
Here's a number that nobody in the "AI productivity" space wants you to calculate: the actual annual cost of the tool stack they're implicitly recommending. Not the cost of one tool. The cost of all of them — the subscriptions, the API credits, the platform
Hex Proof
There's a guy in the Claude Code Discord who uses Claude for everything. Writing, coding, analysis, data transformation, image prompt generation — all of it through one model, one interface. His output is visibly better than people who use five tools for those same five tasks. Not because Claude
Hex Proof
You have access to more AI tools than any human can meaningfully evaluate. There are at least 40 credible text generators, a dozen image models, eight or nine code assistants, and a growing shelf of automation platforms — and that's before you count the wrappers, the integrations, and the
Hex Proof
Every time you switch from one AI tool to another, your brain pays a tax you never see on the invoice. You think you're being efficient — using the best tool for each task, the way a carpenter picks up different hammers. But your brain isn't a
Hex Faq
This is the email I get most often after someone downloads the hex constraint PDF. It usually arrives within 24 hours of the download, and it usually starts the same way: "I read the hex guide and I like the concept, but my situation is different. I actually need
Hex Faq
The hex says pick six tools and go deep. But AI tools ship updates weekly. New products launch monthly. Something you chose in January might be outclassed by March. If you commit to six tools and lock yourself in, you're going to miss the next thing. You'
Hex Faq
The hex constraint says six tools. But what counts as a tool? Does Claude Desktop and Claude Code count as one tool or two? If Notion has AI features baked in, does Notion count as an AI tool? What about free tools — do those count toward the six? What about