Good Cogs and Their Tools

It seems like every time we get a tool that’s supposed to help us work better, faster, and smarter, it turns us into reactive, transactional, careless chaos monkeys.

Boy oh boy, do I get a dopamine rush when I reach inbox zero or close out all my tickets. The best part is, before I get a chance to ask myself if I actually got anything done, the inboxes and queues are full again. Brutal.

If we want people that think, innovate, and pursue big things, why is this the way our collaboration tools actually work? And why aren’t we doing more about the havoc they are so clearly wreaking?

It’s time we rebuild the rhythms of our organizations around the substantive bits instead of the knee-jerk ones. What happened to virtues like discipline, contemplation, care, and reflection in our work lives?