Sending to you WhatsApp messages yourself is an idea that works. But it has a great “but”

A few years ago we began to detect that many people had a WhatsApp group of a single participant (themselves) and used it as a personal notes. The practice was extended so much that in 2022 WhatsApp allowed Send yourself to oneselfwithout the need for false groups.

That has increased this practice, that of convert WhatsApp into a personal homework and manager. Comfort is undeniable: in countries like Spain, WhatsApp is religionand in a touch we can park a fleeting idea, that important link or that photo of the restaurant menu.

The friction threshold is minimal, access is immediate. And that is why it works well as an emergency solution, as a content warehouse to consult in a short time and have very very hand. But We confuse convenience with productivity.

This began as an informal solution, but for many people it has become an improvised personal management system. There are those who even have several groups with themselves, organized thematically: “ideas”, “purchases”, “work” (!!) … a productive architecture built on sand.

WhatsApp is a good messaging tool, but it is not a management tool. It is a patch that gives us the illusion of control, not a real solution. How to try to get a career just used post-ps.

The problem starts WhatsApp turns everything into flow. Information that passes, accumulates and is lost in the Scroll infinite. There is no structure, nor hierarchies or states. A “pending task” looks identical to a completed one already discarded. Or an urgent reminder.

You can’t export anything – or yes you can, but not decently-, there are no limit dates, there are no Checklists. It is the triumph of immediacy over the organization, of the impulse on the method.

Seduction is that We eliminate friction of the moment at the expense of multiplying it exponentially after. That note that you sent you a month ago between memes and irrelevant links. That brilliant idea that sounded important now is only a line of text without context in a sea of fragmented information.

Using it as a sporadic notes of notes does make sense. Living in it and believing that it is a system is to cheat, and it is happening. We apply messaging logic to problems that require management. No surgeon operates in hammers. Systems exist For something.

It can work to some extent, and in fact it works as quickly to accumulate post-psbut the consequences will be paid later, when we need to locate or structure that information.

Comfort, when it becomes independence, ceases to be an advantage to become a limitation.

In Xataka | Every time someone tells me that his mobile is slow, I know where to look: the “paper” of WhatsApp

Outstanding image | Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio