I kind of agree, but if you take the premise of Sapiens that homo sapiens is distinct from other animals in ability to organize around stories rather than more immediate drivers of behaviour - then this may just be part of the human condition.
Yeah, I'm not arguing that we are simply like other animals, but rather that we aren't organizing our work efforts in a way more cognizant of our nature. Instead, most productivity advice seems to be about fooling or 'hacking' yourself into being some sort of machine.
