Lately, I’ve been noticing a growing trend in tech and knowledge work that feels backwards. Instead of spending our time in the tools that actually help us get our jobs done, more and more of our day is being swallowed up by "collaborative" apps—Slack, Jira, Trello, Asana, Teams. You name it. These are the apps designed to help us communicate and coordinate, but they’ve somehow become the primary workspace.

There’s a problem here.

These tools were built to support the real work—project management, sharing files, keeping track of tasks—but now they’re becoming the work itself. Instead of diving deep into code, design software, or writing tools, we’re spending our hours managing conversations, reading through threads, updating tasks, and waiting for notifications to tell us what’s next. We’re not creating, building, or solving problems—we’re just talking about it.

And here’s the kicker: this shift is subtle, almost invisible. It feels productive. After all, we’re constantly in meetings, responding to messages, updating tickets. But when you zoom out and look at where your time goes, it’s clear that we’re spending more time coordinating how to work than actually doing the work. We’ve started measuring productivity by how active we are in these apps, not by the results we deliver.

It’s easy to see why this happens. These collaborative apps are addictive. They come with a constant stream of notifications, updates, and activity feeds that make us feel like we’re on top of things. But the reality is, they’re pulling us away from deep, focused work. It’s the same distraction trap that social media companies have perfected—keeping us engaged for the sake of engagement, not necessarily because it’s helping us achieve something meaningful.

We’ve fallen into a loop where instead of spending time in the apps that allow us to do our core job—whether that’s coding, designing, writing, or whatever it is—we’re stuck in the apps that just talk about it. Slack has become the office. Jira has become the project. Teams has become the team. And somewhere along the way, the actual work—the thing that moves the business forward—has been crowded out by all this digital coordination.

So, what’s the solution?

Here’s where I think we could explore something different—an approach that creates a healthier balance between collaboration and focus. What if we introduced the concept of “edit mode” versus “view mode” within our collaborative apps?

Right now, whenever you open a tool, it’s begging you to engage. Add a comment. Share a gif. Change a setting. Move a column around. Mark a checkbox. Rename a field. It’s designed for constant interaction, and that interaction pulls us away from the actual work. But what if we had a space where we could just look at the content without the need to edit or react?

Imagine a “view mode” where the content is presented as it is. No buttons begging for a click, no pressure to leave a comment or adjust something. Just information, cleanly and intentionally displayed for you to absorb. You get the clarity you need without the cognitive overload of deciding whether or not to interact.

In contrast, “edit mode” would be the intentional space for when you actually need to make changes, update tasks, or provide feedback. This mode is deliberate—you’re in it because you choose to engage, not because you’re constantly being nudged to tweak something. It’s about creating a digital environment that mirrors the kind of focus and simplicity we try to cultivate in the physical world.

The tools we use should serve the work, not the other way around. Let’s start by spending more time in the apps that help us create, solve, and build—and less time in the ones that just keep us clicking around.