Busy getting busy

If you’re old enough, you might remember a productivity system called GTD (Getting Things Done) taking over some corners of the internet back in the early 2000s.

The idea was simple: get tasks out of your head and immediately into a trusted system, so you could concentrate on doing things rather than trying to remember them. It was a really good idea and system, I still use a variant of it.

But people got obsessed with it. And these obsessives often were the least productive people. They spent their days optimising their system, searching for the perfect app, colour-coding their categories, creating filters and rules… They got very busy getting preparing to get busy.

Merlin Mann, who helped popularise GTD online (and coined the term “inbox zero”), ended up calling it “productivity porn” which is an obsession with the tools and rituals of productivity rather than the actual output. He then walked away from the whole thing.

The system itself wasn’t the problem but, when it became the whole point, it also became… the problem.

I’m seeing this pattern play out again, this time with generative AI.

Every tool has added AI features, every workflow is “AI-enhanced”, and every meeting involves someone explaining how they integrated AI into something and are now more productive. There are consultants, courses, and newsletters all dedicated to using AI to be more productive. Every third person on LinkedIn has “AI” in their job title.

And yes, ethics aside (which is, arguably, impossible), generative AI can be useful in the right place, for the right task.

But a lot of it is the same old trick in new clothes: people very busy optimising their AI setup instead of doing what the AI was, at some point, supposed to help with. The tool has become the point, yet again.

So, the eternal question remains: will this actually make the output better, or will it just make the process feel high-tech and modern?

If it’s “no”, you might be doing productivity porn.

Colin