Though I have written in a critical fashion about hacks and tricks before, I cannot deny their appeal. And I think I may have figured out just why they are so appealing.
Essentially, hacks and tricks work for the same reason that placebos do. They get you to believe that things can get better and they get you to focus on some concrete thing in order to put that optimism to use.
The thing about the placebo effect is that it works even when you know you’re getting a placebo. You know that the pill you’re getting contains nothing that is meant to address your symptoms, but because it’s a pill — and you’re conditioned to see pills as medically beneficial — your body works to make you feel somewhat better.
What if lifehacks, tools, and productivity methods work the same way? What if no one system, tool, or trick works better than any other, but it’s the ritual of absorbing one of them that tricks you into feeling better about engaging with the stuff of your life in a productive way?
Consider a few examples.
1. New Tools
Getting a new tool is a great little hack for your motivation to tackle things that you’ve become seemingly totally unmotivated to do. A shiny new tool begs to be used, and we’re usually excited to use it, which means that we’re excited to do the task that the tool is meant to do. If all goes well, a new tool makes it easy to think past that phase of motivation that is most difficult — connecting a boring or daunting task with the pleasure of novelty and play.
I’ve always had trouble doing housework with any regularity. On my list of things to do, it just never registered as anything but an as-needed task. That changed as my daughter became a rampaging 3 year-old, and my son was born with a truly legendary case of colic. With all of the demands on my wife and I, vacuuming and sweeping just became so difficult to get motivated to do.
But then my vacuum broke. To the untrained productivity enthusiast, this may sound like a crippling event — something that would make it even more difficult to do the housework I was already unmotivated to do. But my vacuum breaking necessitated me buying a new one, which necessitated my having to research which vacuum was the best one for the price. My nerdy side was tickled to search through reviews and specs. It was even more tickled when I got the new unit, and had to try it out.
Since getting the new vacuum, I’ve been a vacuuming fiend. And this has had knock-on effects. Because I had to vacuum, I also had to mop the non-carpeted floors. Because I did all of that cleaning, I felt motivated to clean the bathrooms. I found myself picking up and organizing, dusting, the whole nine. And it all started with a broken vacuum.
2. Lifehacks and Tricks
The term “lifehacks” and “tricks” are more like a pill than perhaps any other thing in the realm of productivity. Like a magic pill a trick or a lifehack is supposed to be a little thing you can do to get supposedly huge returns — especially the kind of returns that we usually think of as requiring a lot of work. That’s much like how a pill is supposed to be a little thing that helps you get the kind of results (like say, weight loss) that is thought to normally take a lot of effort (like diet and exercise).
Am I saying that lifehacks and tricks aren’t helpful in and of themselves? Not at all. Some of them immediately help you effectively leverage your time and energy for good returns. All I’m saying is that much more than we acknowledge, these tricks and hacks work because they focus your attention and energy on thinking positively and engaging appropriately with things that are important to you.
3. Reading Words
Much like adopting new tools, reading about productivity can also supercharge your productivity. Whether it be an article about being more productive in general, or a book about a new systematic approach to productivity, just reading about it can get you in the right frame of mind to do more and do better.
Words have power, and in reading about something, we can and do get motivated about that thing, even if we end up changing little to nothing about our approach to taking action. That’s why people (like me) continue to churn out content on self-improvement, productivity, and other mostly psychologically-based phenomena.
So does this mean that no tools, hacks, or written words are going to help you be more productive? Not at all — in fact much the opposite. I liken tools, hacks, and words to placebos because like placebos, even when there’s seemingly no substance to them, they still work just enough. They work on your motivation, your point of view, your emotions, your desire to get better. All of those things are vital to becoming more productive. They’re not in themselves going to make you more productive, but they play an important role.
The great thing about these placebos is that they are everywhere. So gobble them up, see what makes you feel better. So far as I can tell, there’s no danger of overdose.
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