Productivity Porn
Your morning routine has eleven steps. You know this because the Notion template that manages it has eleven checkboxes — each with a time estimate, a linked resource, and a conditional note that adjusts based on whether you completed yesterday's routine. You also have a GPT-generated daily journal prompt,
Productivity Porn
You have 2,847 notes in your Obsidian vault. You know this because the graph view tells you — a beautiful constellation of interconnected nodes, purple and glowing, lines crisscrossing like a neural network. You showed it to someone once. They were impressed. You have never opened the graph view to
Productivity Porn
You have a time-tracking dashboard with seven charts. You built it in March. It is now October and you have never once looked at it before making a decision about how to spend your time. The dashboard exists. It updates automatically. It is beautiful. It is furniture. The Pattern The
Productivity Porn
You've been setting up your task manager for three weeks. You haven't completed a task in it yet. The tags are perfect. The filters are dialed. The custom fields are extensive. You've watched four YouTube videos about the "ideal Todoist workflow" and
Productivity Porn
You bought a writing app two months ago. You have not written anything in it. But you feel — in a vague, unexamined way — like you've been more "serious about writing" since the purchase. You haven't been. You've been exactly as productive as
Productivity Porn
You are paying for somewhere between 8 and 15 software subscriptions right now. You are actively using two or three of them. The rest are billing quietly, month after month, surviving on a combination of inertia, guilt, and the vague sense that you might need them someday. This article is
Productivity Porn
You have a Notion workspace with 23 pages, 4 databases, 6 linked views, and a custom template you found on Reddit. You last opened it 11 weeks ago. You spent an entire weekend building it. This article is about why Notion — more than any other tool — turns setup into a
Productivity Porn
You subscribed to another productivity app last week. You've opened it three times. The third time was to check if your free trial was still active. You won't cancel it for another two months — not because you're using it, but because canceling means admitting
Productivity Porn
Pick one tool. Use it for thirty days. No switching, no supplementing, no "just checking" the alternative. When you hit a wall, work around it instead of reaching for something new. This sounds like deprivation. It's actually the fastest way to find out what you need,
Platform Wars
DeepSeek did something in January 2025 that the entire Western AI industry told you was impossible. A Chinese lab — operating under US export controls that were supposed to kneecap Chinese AI development — released a model that matched or beat GPT-4 on major benchmarks while reportedly spending a fraction of what
Platform Wars
The AI industry is consolidating. Not slowly, not quietly — at a pace that should concern anyone who depends on a tool built by a company with fewer than a thousand employees. Since 2023, the pattern has been consistent: big tech companies buy AI startups for their talent, their technology, or
Platform Wars
Governments are regulating AI. Not "considering" it, not "exploring frameworks" — actually passing laws that change what tools can do, how they work, and whether they're available in your country. The EU AI Act is being enforced. The US has a patchwork of executive orders