I Deleted My Productivity “Tools”

There’s a particular type of madness that overtakes you when you get too deep into productivity tools. It starts innocently enough, maybe with a single app that promises to organize your life, declutter your mind, or finally help you wrestle your to-do list into submission.

But soon, you’re lost in a labyrinth of optimization, experimenting with nested tags, color-coded priorities, markdown notes, and automated workflows that nobody but a robot could love.

Before you know it, you’ve spent more time trying to perfect your “system” than actually doing the things the system was supposed to help you with.

I know this because I’ve been there.

And then, pretty recently, I stopped.

I stripped everything back. Apple Notes. Reminders. Safari. Pages. Safari’s reading list for articles I want to check out later. That’s it. Just the apps that came pre-installed on my laptop, tools so basic they practically blend into the wallpaper. They’re not flashy. They don’t have cult followings or slick YouTube tutorials detailing secret features. They don’t have quirky mascots begging for feedback. But they’re there, sitting quietly in my dock, always ready to go. And they work.

The result of this radical simplification? My productivity and output have soared. Not improved. Not…