The Paradox Of Productivity Apps
Hey friends,
It feels good to be back. A lot has happened since I last sent a newsletter. I took a break to study for my finals. I thankfully passed those finals which means I’m now extremely grateful and privileged to say I’ll be starting my career as a doctor this summer.
I also replenished my creative stores and thought very hard about this newsletter during this time. I concluded that I’m pretty happy with the format and design but now want to focus on making things short, snappy, and ultra-valuable.
So, I’m back! One thought, one quote, one recommendation. Every single week.
One Thought ⚡️
Here’s my beef with productivity tools (Notion I still love you)!
So, the idea is that there are tools out there such as Notion, Evernote, Todist, etc. that are designed to make us more productive. But, I don’t think they make us any more productive than we were before we downloaded them. This was a realisation I had during my long finals exam season. Whilst I was revising, I noticed the easiest and fastest way for me to take some quick notes, make a list, or organise some thoughts was just to open up Apple Notes. My first reaction was never to create a Notion page as I knew this would mean faffing around with metatags, making it look organised, and well-formatted. In other words, I actively avoided it because I knew I would spend more time and not get very far. This then made me come up with the following analogy.
Notion is like owning a Rolls-Royce. It’s fantastic, luxurious, and has a bunch of bells and whistles, such as a retractable umbrella hidden away in an automatic door. Apple Notes is like owning a Prius. Nothing fancy about it, but it’s uber-efficient, trustworthy, and get’s the job done. At the core of it, both cars or both apps will get you from A to B. One might just be a nicer experience, that’s all. That does not make it a more productive experience, just a nicer one.
So, going ahead, I think I will simplify my productivity ecosystem putting an emphasis on results and efficiency over anything else. I’ll make a YouTube video about it sometime soon - so watch out for that. But, don’t get me wrong, there are certainly many use cases where Notion will destroy Apple Notes. It’s just that generally speaking you don’t need to always be wearing Prada to go to the grocery store — if you get what I mean.
One Quote 🧠
“Forget rich versus poor, white-collar versus blue. It’s now leveraged versus un-leveraged.” — The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant(Eric Jorgenson)
One Recommendation 🚀
Book 📚 — The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck
This was one of the first self-help books I read back in 2018. It was the first time I was introduced to the power of daily affirmations. I’ve since revisited it numerous times and just recently someone asked me for a book recommendation because they wanted to do something but worried what others might think. I sent them this.
This Week on YouTube 🎥
How To Make Money Online - An Actionable Guide (2021)
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That’s all for this week — be safe, be happy!
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