I no longer file expense reports, so I no longer experience the pain of it. What if everyone had a virtual ass... — Stewart Butterfield

I no longer file expense reports, so I no longer experience the pain of it. What if everyone had a virtual assistant to do that kind of effort... like approving time off or submitting time-off requests? We want to really encourage developers to create cool things for Slack.

Author: Stewart Butterfield

Insight: There's something almost radical in what Butterfield is pointing at here—the idea that removing friction from boring tasks isn't just about saving time, it's about changing what you're willing to do. When submitting an expense report feels painful enough, you might just avoid it altogether, which means money left unclaimed and frustration festering. But hand that off to something automated, and suddenly the barrier vanishes. The bigger insight is that we've been thinking about productivity backward. We assume people just need to "work harder" or "be more disciplined," when really we're fighting against the weight of a thousand small drains. It's like asking someone to run a marathon while wearing a weighted vest—not because the running is the issue, but because the vest is exhausting them first. If developers can build away those small pains, people aren't just saving minutes; they're reclaiming mental space and goodwill. What makes this thinking stick around is that it works at any scale. Whether you're in a tech company or managing a small team, the principle holds: the energy people spend on logistics is energy they're not spending on anything that actually matters to them or your business. Remove the friction, and you don't get people working harder—you get them working on things that actually deserve their attention.