The Productivity Trap Nobody Talks About

There's a concept called induced demand that is often explained with a traffic analogy. Suppose there's a road that's always congested. It should follow that if the road is at capacity, adding another lane should alleviate the traffic. And it does, for some amount of time at least. But then, over time, traffic starts to get congested again. What's happened is that the new capacity has changed the calculus of driving. When transit times decrease, it makes more sense to drive, so more people will make that choice. And so, the work of increasing capacity has now induced demand for that same capacity.

I'm a self-proclaimed productivity junkie. I've read every book I can get my hands on about the subject. And when I learn a new productivity trick and increase my bandwidth, I feel like I've reclaimed my time. But it's never permanent.

When you have free time, you tend to volunteer more often and are willing to take on more tasks. If you're not careful, that free time can be quickly consumed. …