UI as attention guardrails
Whenever you open an app you give it permission to shape the grooves of your attention. Through its interface, it suggests and implies a limited range of ways you can interact. This all sounds very abstract, and what I really want to say is that I think my Things app (the #1 best selling productivity app, I assume) keeps me in a kind of productivity hell. I have, what, 84 things to do today? Tasks lists should not be ambient all-day guides. I should leave it in the closet, go in there and whiff it for 5 minutes, max 10, commit to memory whatever is important, and then not go back until tomorrow.