[A translation of this post is available in Chinese]

Programmers often describe their ideal tools with adjectives like “powerful”, “feature-rich”, and “highly-configurable”. Few users are seen as wanting more from their computers than programmers.

This popular notion agrees with our general intuition that more capability intrinsically yields greater productivity. My lived experience suggests, however, that while capability is a prerequisite for productivity, the two hardly share a linear correlation. A dozen ways to do the same thing just results in time-wasting analysis paralysis. Apps packed with features to cover every conceivable need will slowly crowd out the tool’s primary use. Every extra configuration option that I delight in tweaking is another if-else branch in the system, requiring its developers to test more and change less, slowing the pace of innovation.

Mistakenly conflating capability and productivity is the reason why Microsoft started calling itself a “productivity” company

As a result, I’ve come around to a more nuanced view of productivity: that of a tenuous balance between friction and focus. “Friction” is the necessary turning of knobs on my tools in order to do work. “Focus” is the intentional ommission of knobs from tools to foster clear thinking. Any knowledge worker must balance their own creative action with thoughtful attention, and every software interface crystallizes an attempt at striking such a balance.

I’ve owned all-but-one model iPhone, but I’m not doing much to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. The iPhone changed my life in countless ways, but its greatest long-term effect has been the dulling of my introspective and creative faculties. I’ve grown uncomfortable with boredom, consuming news at every idle moment. I’ve arranged for myself a menagerie of pull-to-refresh Skinner boxes, which have seriously affected how my brain regulates dopamine. On the rare occasion I manage to buckle down and focus, a notification will inevitably steal minutes of my attention with a mere ten-second context switch. It’s hard to discuss productivity in any serious way without acknowledging how much our tools and our brains have changed since 2007.

For a while, I assumed working on a desktop computer would continue to provide refuge from this era of distraction, but then Apple went and brought all the fun Back to the Mac. And while it’s possible to opt-out of a lot of the things that make the Mac less productive, I can’t deny that the root problem is that my experience carrying an iPhone everywhere I go has changed me in profound ways.

Here’s a depressing example. Desktop operating systems’ windowing features used to represent a net productivity boost — I could see two things at once, drag between them, and get more done in less time. But this stopped being the case at some point in the post-iPhone age. Here’s why: the mere absence of any windows in the corner of my screen will prompt my brain to think if I type ⌘-Space "tw" , I could have Tweetbot fill that void on the left side of my desktop / soul. And every time, as if I’d entered some kind of fugue state, 30 minutes will have elapsed with me getting absolutely nothing done, leaving a mess of browser tabs open, and with an elevated heart-rate on account of feeling antagonized by an unkind rando on Twitter.

2007 Justin would see an editor and a browser, but 2017 Justin can only see unutilized space that could be occupied by Twitter, Mail, or Slack

Like many people, I’ve aspirationally purchased several iPads over the years thinking “maybe this time will be different.” And each time, it’s fallen short of enabling me to do real work. This most recent attempt, I’m happy to report, has finally been successful.

I’ve been using an iPad exclusively for work for 4 weeks (switching over to the 10.5" iPad Pro once it came out), and I’ve gotten much more meaningful work done — coding included — than I normally do. My greatest concern is that my more expensive Macs are starting to collect dust.

This is a long post, but that's because I’m not only using the iPad to solve a simple tooling problem, I’m using it to solve a mental one as well. I’ve found there is no way to usefully distinguish our software tools from our thought processes: each informs and influences the other. So, yes, it’s easy for me to list off the tools I’m using and why they’re so great (and we’ll dispense with those in but a moment). But I also hope that by reflecting on my broader motivations, you might question some of your own preconceptions, as well.