People, myself included, are addicted to productivity. As product designers, we excel at using productivity tools and accomplishing tasks.

“Bias to action is the right thing,” we told ourselves. However, does this automatically make us truly productive people?

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, still uses a notepad and pen to manage tasks.

My system has three key pillars: “Make sure to get the important shit done,” “Don’t waste time on stupid shit,” and “Make a lot of lists.”
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It doesn’t matter how fast you move if it’s in a worthless direction. Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and is usually almost ignored.

True productivity is about getting the most important thing done rather than getting more things done.

On a personal level, learning how to use a productivity tool is probably not the most important thing for most of us. I often fall into the trap of planning instead of doing the actual work. This can give me a false sense of progress when I'm not actually making any.

On a business level, during my early design career, I have seen startup founders busy issuing cryptos instead of focusing on building a product people will love.

Fake work is both easier and more fun than real work for many founders. Two particularly bad cases are raising money and getting personal press. —— Sam Altman

As product designers, this is where we can bring value to the table. Help the team focus on the most important work, not fake ones, through research, analysis, and testing ideas early and often.