The End of Productivity

“When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while the immeasurable, the qualitative, and the things we don’t think to measure drain away. Bedazzled by quantitative abundance, we might not be able to see what is lost, but we can definitely feel its absence.”

But this future is a possibility, not an inevitability. I believe there are two plausible scenarios for the future of knowledge work. There’s one in which as machines become more human-like in their capabilities, we paradoxically become more machine-like in our pursuit of productivity, focused on efficiency and keeping busy above all else. But ther... See more

Our interfaces should facilitate prose-sculpting, meaning-architecting, memory-augmenting, and inspiration-harvesting—all grounded in sources we love and trust. Just as calculators shifted math from rote computation to conceptual exploration, AI can nudge creative work toward the things humans are uniquely good at: thinking and feeling deeply.

When it comes to AI, we need to aim higher than the question: “What if you could press a button to generate an essay?” AI can produce infinite amounts of content; quantity is its game. Quality, intention, taste, originality, vision—that’s where we come in.

The first step in any creative journey is collecting sparks of inspiration—the ideas, quotes, images, and links you love and don't want to forget.

But here’s the thing: When you find something that resonates, its use is not always immediately apparent. A line in a song might be the seed for your next coding project or inspire the title for the book ... See more

“Creativity is about connections, and connections are not made by siloing everything off into its own space. New ideas are formed by interesting juxtapositions, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place . ”

But for creative information, what you need is tools that encourage connections, facilitate serendipity, and support non-linear thinking. If you think of tools as places where you spend your time, then Linear is a factory production line, Asana a conveyor belt, Evernote an office cubicle, and X an overcrowded bar. A tool built for creativity should... See more

Productivity tools shape our thinking in ways that favor standardization, efficiency, and predictability. They demand structure before inspiration has a chance to strike. They ask for timelines when the problem itself is still hazy. But creativity is not linear. Often, it involves struggling down several blind alleys before finding the right path.

La IA puede producir cantidades infinitas de contenido; La cantidad es su juego. Calidad, intención, sabor, originalidad, visión: ahí es donde entramos nosotros.