# Why Productivity Apps Are Unproductive

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## Metadata
- Author: [[Oishi Dasgupta]]
- Full Title: Why Productivity Apps Are Unproductive
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://medium.com/@oishidasgupta/why-productivity-apps-are-unproductive-for-me-b35ce4b402b9

## Highlights
- I won’t claim to be an unproductive person. I get work done. When it comes to a client, I have the article ready before they can sign the contract.
- It’s a different story when it comes to my stuff. I don’t get enough free time and when I do, it’s several tasks fighting for priority.
- Trying to decide which task to focus on for the day somehow leads to a Netflix movie marathon. Even while I’m writing this, I have one unrelated tab open for Substack and another for Umma’s official trailer. With any luck, I’ll actually get to finish my productivity rant today.
- Part of me always knew those aren’t for me, at least from the glimpses I got from other people using it.
- So what if Notion won’t help me organize my life. I can use it for journaling instead.
- All excited, I signed up for Notion. And promptly got a headache.
- The Problem With Notion
- Are productivity apps actually for disorganized people? Or is it for those who have taken notes with glitter pens and yellow markers all their life?
- Why do I have to spend so much time color coding, categorizing, tagging, and date-blocking stuff for a simple journal entry?
- Why is it that the Getting Started section has 4 tutorials? How come I have to devote at least an hour to understand the basics of Notion? Why is the official advanced tutorial fourteen minutes long?
- You open the Reading List section and there are huge blocks of texts you have to read first. Coupled with a number of academic journals and essays I don’t remember asking them to pre-download.
- it seems way easier to force myself to grab that book I’ve been meaning to read instead of writing a to-do list about how I should.
- This isn’t a sole problem with Notion either. Almost all productivity apps are time-consuming. If you want a reminder on something, you don’t actually need to open some app and make an entry under to-do task.
- Setting an alarm on your phone in-built app has the same effect
- Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you follow through with the task when you get the reminder. However, seeing it on your to-do list isn’t gonna help you get it done.
- Productivity And The Self-Help Industry
- From my perspective, productivity apps and the self-help industry share the same traits.
- It’s a bunch of people telling you this is how you can help yourself. So, you end up watching one video after another, reading multiple books, and trying an immense amount of platforms.
- The time you’re supposed to invest in yourself is wasted on these apps and the self-help seminars.
- Productivity apps work for people who can drop in on the platform, do a quick summary, and go about doing their actual tasks. It works if someone already had the entire thing set up ages ago. Not for people who’re short on time.
- they need to start making productivity apps simple. If you’re spending more time organizing stuff on an app than your actual task, then that’s not being productive
- I’m not saying productivity apps are useless. I’m saying the apps don’t appear to be for people who have trouble with staying on track. Instead, the target audience aligns with people who wake up at 6 a.m. anyway.