No productivity tool will ever help you become a more productive person. Just as well as no coach will ever make you a better person or any personal trainer will make you more fit.
We’ve become lost in words in all of these cases. Productivity tools will be tools for you to exploit in having productive periods. A coach might help you realise things that make you better. A personal trainer will show you what work needs to be done for your body to become more fit.
It might seem like splitting words, but it’s an important distinction to make.
When you install a new app to become more productive, the work starts. That’s when you need to start utilising the app in a way that works for you. When you’ve hired a coach, you need to do the tasks that are given to you by the coach. And when you get a PT, you need to start showing up to the gym and doing the exercises.
Otherwise nothing will happen. Just as before you got the accessory.
We’re biologically programmed to think that we’re at the finish line when we buy something, and that’s an instinct we need to fight every single time something like this happens. We know that buying a book doesn’t mean we’ve understood the content, but you’ll feel like you have.
So read the damn book. Do those curls. Ask yourself the hard questions. Sit down and focus on your job.
Because that’s what’s going to lead to the effect you wanted out of the purchase in the first place.