At a certain point, optimizing productivity becomes optimizing for speed of decision making. After all the tools, shortcuts, and hacks, that build up raw speed to get tasks done, you’re left with the cognitive load of decision making. That email you received? It’s a decision disguised as a reply. That Slack message that remains unread? You’re procrastinating because a decision needs to be made that you don’t want to confront.
So many productivity frameworks and tools rely on cleverly hiding tasks in queues so that you can do them later. Try being more decisive and see what kind of impact that has on your to-do list.
See also: