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Yadullah Abidi is a Computer Science graduate from the University of Delhi and holds a postgraduate degree in Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. With over a decade of experience in Windows and Linux systems, programming, PC hardware, cybersecurity, malware analysis, and gaming, he combines deep technical knowledge with strong editorial instincts.

Yadullah currently writes for MakeUseOf as a Staff Writer, covering cybersecurity, gaming, and consumer tech. He formerly worked as Associate Editor at Candid.Technology and as News Editor at The Mac Observer, where he reported on everything from raging cyberattacks to the latest in Apple tech.

In addition to his journalism work, Yadullah is a full-stack developer with experience in JavaScript/TypeScript, Next.js, the MERN stack, Python, C/C++, and AI/ML. Whether he’s analyzing malware, reviewing hardware, or building tools on GitHub, he brings a hands-on, developer’s perspective to tech journalism.

Productivity apps are great. They help you stay on track, manage tasks, and deal with the overwhelming flow of information that life might throw at you. That said, they’re also getting increasingly complex, which means dealing with the apps themselves can sometimes waste time.

I used to think having dedicated apps for every function was the path to peak efficiency. Instead, I was paying a cognitive tax that made it nearly impossible to focus on deep work. Just like most AI tools are a waste of money, but some are essential. Not all productivity tools necessarily save you time.

Notion

When organizing work started to feel like the work itself

Notion is arguably the worst offender here. Marketed as an "all-in-one workspace", it actually turned out to be an all-in-one distraction factory. At one point, I tried running my entire life in Notion and staying organized. It started great—until I realized I was spending hours building dashboards and databases rather than actually using them. Yes, Notion has a lot of features, but they aren’t exactly features I’ll be using every day. On the contrary, a lot of features that I’ve been used to in the years of using several specialized tracking programs were missing from Notion.

This is one of the biggest reasons why Notion didn’t work for me, but Excel did. I ended up using Notion for only one thing: data dumps. My Notion pages are now essentially large bulleted lists of information I would need to refer back to. That said, some people seem to have better luck building their entire workflow in Notion—at least for a while—even if that experience doesn’t always age as well as expected.

Notion lets you create databases within databases, create relations across dozens of linked properties, and customize templates endlessly. But this flexibility comes at the cost of unwanted complexity. Additionally, the platform’s slow performance can compound the problem.

Obsidian

Powerful links, endless tweaks, and diminishing returns

Obsidian promised to be my second brain, and it delivered—only at the cost of becoming an obsession itself. The learning curve is no myth. Mastering Obsidian requires understanding Markdown syntax, backlink conventions, nested folders, YAML frontmatter, and community plugins. None of this is inherently difficult, but you will spend more time figuring things out and researching rather than actually using the tool. At least initially.

Some plugins can turn your Obsidian vault into a visual masterpiece, but by the time you’re done making your vault, you’ll have already spent hours learning Obsidian. The mobile app can also be slow and resource-hungry, forcing you to use separate capture tools like voice recorders and other note-taking apps only to consolidate everything later. That’s less a second brain and more a second job.

Todoist

When checking things off becomes another chore

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Todoist’s simplified due-date system forces you to assign arbitrary dates just to organize tasks, and then you end up with an overwhelming list of tasks due that aren’t actually due. The more tasks you accumulate, the worse the psychological burden. It’s a lot like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder uphill.

Most, if not all, to-do list apps have the same fundamental flaw: they never forget. Unlike a paper list, where you physically discard completed tasks, to-do apps preserve every single item you’ve ever entered. This creates a sort of task debt problem that can quickly escalate.

When you miss your target date for a task, which you inevitably will, these apps generally reschedule the task to your current day’s list. But if you have over 50 items all due on the same day, the system collapses. You stop trusting the app, stop checking it, and eventually, stop using it. Accumulating too many tasks makes you feel paralyzed by the backlog, leading to you abandoning the app for a fresh start. Those tasks, meanwhile? Never ends up getting completed.

Slack

Being “reachable” isn’t the same as being productive

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Slack is the most difficult to ignore app on this list because it’s the backbone of communication in a lot of professional settings. However, it’s quickly evolving into a context-switching device rather than a messaging app.

The expectation of an immediate response is built into Slack’s DNA. Even turning off notifications doesn’t solve the problem because knowing there are unread messages creates cognitive load. You end up mentally task-switching even without physically responding.

Asana

More visibility, more overhead, less momentum

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Enterprise project management tools like Asana are guilty of the same issue as Notion. They promise to centralize project coordination, but their implementation requires extensive configuration before they become useful.

Asana demands significant initial setup time. Its customization options sound great until you realize you’re spending weeks configuring the tool instead of executing projects. There’s also the hidden cost of integration sprawl.

Most organizations end up with a fragmented tech stack, including programs like Asana, Slack, and Google Workspace, among others, that multiply context-switching opportunities. This, in turn, further divides your attention. Asana’s task system also inherits the same psychological due date burden that to-do list apps put on you.

Google Calendar

Every minute accounted for, but less time actually used well

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Google Calendar seems innocent, but it enables meeting culture’s worst excesses. The friction to scheduling a meeting is near-zero, and there are some genius Google Calendar shortcuts that make this even faster. Someone sends a calendar invite, and suddenly your day is fragmented.

These are essential notifications, too. You wouldn’t want to miss a meeting just because your notifications were silenced. So if you’ve got your Google Calendar open in a browser tab, seeing all your meetings sprawled across the week or month can quickly get exhausting. Additionally, if you’re trying to actually organize or arrange your time across appointments, there’s going to be a lot of switching back and forth between your keyboard and mouse. This is one of the reasons why I switched to a text-based calendar that’s shockingly efficient.

What seems productive isn’t always productive

So why do we keep downloading these time-wasters? The answer is quite simple. These apps and the way they function make us feel more productive, even if they’re sapping intrinsic motivation and not helping us get any work done.

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I can’t count how many times I’ve justified watching a 30-minute Notion setup tutorial as research when I should have been working instead. That’s the trap: the rabbit hole of optimization never ends.

The solution isn’t abandoning technology, it’s being brutally selective and keeping your tech stack lean. Productivity isn’t about having the perfect system—it’s about having a simple system you actually use. It’s not that these apps are inherently bad. In fact, they’re almost impossible to avoid in a professional setting. It’s just that a lot of their features and customization options are simply distractions dressed up as solutions.