Productivity podcasts, apps, blogs and tools sell us the dream of becoming more efficient, more productive and more capable: the optimised version 2.0 of ourselves.

Given we live in a time mind-blowingly different from the one our grandparents knew (and, in another couple of decades, it will become unrecognisable to us too) it is no wonder people feel overwhelmed and want to reclaim some control. The "success industry" with its productivity hacks appeals to this.

Productivity hacks are no silver bullet for our woes. Credit:Getty

But the promise of productivity hacks can put pressure on us, making us feel inadequate and, ironically, driving us to distraction. As a result, there’s a rather tantalising counter-culture emerging, calling the pursuit of "productivity" out for the trap that it is and celebrating the virtues of a little chaos.

“There is a life hack for pretty much everything these days, we seem to be evolving to do everything better and more efficiently. This is wonderful when it works well, and you are feeling better as a result – after all, isn’t that why we want to life hack?” asks psychologist Marny Lishman. “But is that what is really happening?”