Every productivity system is cognitive outsourcing — renting part of your brain to a method so you don't carry it all in your head. A carpenter with a plumber's tools fails every day. This guide is the fit-check: seven systems, two dimensions, one honest question about what's actually broken.
Step 1 — Name what's actually broken
Don't shop systems. Diagnose first. Tap the one that sounds most like your week — the map below lights up where you should be looking.
Step 2 — The map
Vertical axis: is the system about doing tasks or about the process around them? Horizontal: how simple or thorough is it? Tap a dot to jump to its playbook. Any system you meet in the wild can be placed on this same map — if you can't place it, it's a rabbit hole.
Diminishing returns are real: past the point where the system solves your problem, every added ritual is overhead. Garden shovel before excavator.
Step 3 — The seven playbooks
Tap to open. Each card: what it is, the one problem it kills, the cost of running it, and the Ketron read.
Step 4 — The two-week trial
Pick one, maybe two. Run it for two full weeks, then score it against exactly three questions. Anything else is productivity clout-chasing.
1
Did it move the needle on YOUR problem?Not solved — improved enough that the effort pays for itself. You can always tweak a system; you can't tweak the wrong system into the right one.
2
Can you actually maintain it?If the system takes forever to feed, it dies. A system you half-run is worse than no system — it lies to you about what's covered.
3
Does it dovetail into real life?If it fights how your work and family actually run, it loses. Every time. The system bends to the life, not the other way around.