I spent 6 months interviewing 50+ people about productivity. Here's what actually worked.

I've been building an AI secretary (irel.ai) and before writing a line of code, I interviewed dozens of busy professionals about their productivity systems.

The pattern was clear: everyone had tried 10+ apps and abandoned them all.

The #1 reason? Friction.

Not "the app didn't have feature X" — just... friction. Open app → remember login → navigate to the thing → do the thing. Too many steps between thought and action.

The winners were people who reduced friction to zero:

• One founder used WhatsApp to text himself todos
• Another forwarded every email to a VA with "do this"
• A third kept a physical notebook because unlocking her phone = distraction rabbit hole

So we built irel on WhatsApp. No app download. No new interface. Just text.

Same friction as texting a friend. But the friend never forgets, never sleeps, and actually follows up.

What's your lowest-friction productivity hack? The weirder, the better.