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Your New ‘Solution’ Is the Problem

Your New ‘Solution’ Is the Problem

We keep buying new tools, but the real work remains undone. This is the illusion of productivity.

The project kickoff document is still a blank page, but the first critical debate is already raging. The screen-share shows five different browser tabs, each one a brightly colored dashboard promising frictionless productivity. A disembodied voice crackles through the speakers, “I just think Monday.com has a cleaner interface for stakeholder visibility.” Another voice cuts in, “But Jira integrates with the bug reports natively. We’d be crazy not to use it.” Someone else types furiously in the chat: What about that new tool, NotionFlow? The marketing team just bought 15 licenses. The cursor on the blank document blinks, patiently. The goal of the project remains undefined, but the battle for how to track the work we aren’t doing yet has reached a fever pitch.

This isn’t work. It’s the illusion of work.

It’s the most seductive form of procrastination because it feels so incredibly productive. We are choosing the font for the novel we haven’t written. We are buying expensive running shoes for the marathon we haven’t trained for. Buying and implementing a new piece of software feels like taking decisive action, a bold step towards efficiency. But more often than not, it’s a masterful act of avoidance. It’s a way to sidestep the messy, awkward, and deeply human work of fixing a broken process or clarifying a muddled line of communication.

Each New Tool Is a Tax

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