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April 30th, 2026
​A newsletter by Anne-Laure Le Cunff​

🌟 The Pull of the New

It often starts with a reasonable thought: there must be a better way to do this. One quick search turns into a comparison of five alternatives, then a tutorial, then a plugin you might want to try.

By the end of the day, you’ve learned something new, but the work you actually cared about is still untouched.

There’s a name for this: the shiny toy syndrome. It’s the tendency to chase new tools, technologies, or ideas for the short-lived satisfaction they provide rather than for their actual usefulness.

You see it when people switch tools repeatedly and launch side projects they don’t sustain. It shows up across creative work, entrepreneurship, and software development – anywhere the supply of interesting options outpaces the time to properly use them.

There’s a biological reason this pull is so hard to resist. Research shows that novelty activates dopamine pathways in the brain, reinforcing exploration and motivation.

Dopamine signals potential – the feeling that this new tool might be the one that finally makes everything click. That promise is exciting, which is exactly why it’s so easy to follow without questioning it.

Maybe you’ve swapped your project management app three times this year, each migration eating a weekend you meant to spend on actual work. Or every new coding project starts with “I’ve been wanting to try Rust” instead of picking the language that would get you to a working prototype fastest. Or you’ve enrolled in courses that still sit at 12% completion, each one abandoned when the next interesting course pops up on your feed.

The problem isn’t the curiosity itself, but letting novelty become the main driver of your decisions. This can create unnecessary stress through fragmented attention and constant relearning. Over time, this drains your energy and can weaken both individual and team performance.

So, how do you manage the shiny toy syndrome?

1. Add a cooling-off period before committing. Delay decisions about new tools or technologies by a few days or weeks. This gap helps reduce impulsive choices driven by novelty and allows your excitement to settle, making it easier to judge their actual value. If you still want to make the switch after the waiting period, that’s a much stronger signal than the initial rush of curiosity.

2. Clarify your reason for wanting the new tool. Ask yourself, in writing, why you want to adopt it. Is it clearly improving outcomes for users or the business, or does it mainly feel interesting? Writing it down is important as it’s harder to fool yourself on paper than in your head.

3. Calculate the true cost of switching. Consider the time, attention, and postponed priorities that come with adopting something new. Second-order thinking forces you to account for what you’re giving up, not just what you might gain. The new tool might be better in isolation, but is it better enough to justify the transition cost?

4. Use a structured decision framework. If this is a big decision, apply a matrix such as the DECIDE framework to define the problem, set criteria, and compare alternatives objectively. This is a bit more involved, so only do this when there are quite a few options to consider (and always seriously consider the option to stick to what you’re currently using!)

The idea is not to limit your curiosity, but to apply it with intention. When you slow down your decisions, reflect on your motivations, and review the potential impact of your choices, curiosity becomes a tool rather than a distraction.

🔬 Tiny Experiment of the Week

Ready to put these ideas into practice? Try this week’s tiny experiment to be more intentional about trying shiny new toys.

This will help you reduce impulse-driven decisions and help train your brain to create distance between curiosity and action. You can even keep a “later list” page for all the interesting tools and courses you find during those three weeks. Want to dig deeper? ​​Get your copy of Tiny Experiments​.

👀 Into the Mind of...

LAURA VANDERKAM

Each week I ask a curious mind about their habits, routines, and rituals. This week we learn from bestselling author Laura Vanderkam, whose latest book Big Time makes the case for using our 8,760 hours a year to craft a joyful life.

1. One daily practice you can’t do without? I’ve been tracking my time since 2015. I check in 3-4 times a day and write down what I’ve done since the last check in. This takes the same amount of time I spend brushing my teeth, but these few minutes pay off in helping me spend my hours better.

2. One strategy to restart your creative engine? If I’m stuck, I go for a walk. It’s so simple, and yet there’s something magical about 15 minutes walking outside. I come back energized and in a better mood, and usually with a few ideas.

3. One mindset shift that transformed your work? People often say “24-7” but they rarely multiply that through. When I did for the first time and realized that there were 168 hours in a week, this was transformative. There may not be enough hours in the day to get to everything we want to get to, but looking at the whole week shows us how much time there is.

Big Time

🛠️ Brain Picks

• Read smarter, not longer. Most bestselling nonfiction can be distilled into a handful of powerful ideas – if you know where to look. Shortform curates the world’s best books into clear, structured guides so you can learn faster, retain more, and actually apply what you read. Ness Labs readers get 20% off. Explore your next idea.

• Make focus feel tangible. Most productivity tools ask you to fight distraction on the same screen that causes it. Focusaur gives you a physical focus companion, AI guidance, and a playful dinosaur-based reward system that makes consistency feel tangible, not theoretical. Designed for deep work and lasting habits every day. Secure your early bird deal on Kickstarter.

• Stressed at work, fed up with your job and dreading Mondays in the office? “Anti-career coach” and London banker Tom Grundy has created a free guide (How To Work Your Way) for professionals wanting more freedom and fulfilment. Join his newsletter to grab the guide.

Many thanks to our sponsors and cross-promo partners for supporting the Ness Labs newsletter! Want to appear here? Please email support@nesslabs.com to learn more.

🗓️ Community Events

If you enjoy the newsletter, you’ll love our community of curious minds conducting tiny experiments within a safe space and learning together. Here is an overview of upcoming events (full calendar):

• Build professional influence as an introvert. Join author Stephanie Thoma today for a workshop where she will walk you through how intentional relationship-building, strategic communication, and calm presence can help you build meaningful connections and grow your influence as an introvert.​
• Create space for every version of yourself. In this guided journaling session, Gosia Fricze will help you reflect on the different versions of yourself that have existed over the years, the parts you’ve outgrown, and how to make space for who you are becoming. 
​• Reimagine your relationship to retirement. In this workshop, Jim Eagar will share what he’s learned from coaching others through the retirement transition, including the phases most retirees go through, the losses nobody warns you about, and how tiny experiments can help you find your way back to meaning.
​• Make progress on your projects. Join Kathryn Ruge for our Monday ‘body doubling’ coworking session to work on personal or work-related projects that you want to make progress on, covering all timezones.
​• Improve your knowledge management system. Join our next PKM meeting where we learn from one another through sharing how our systems work in the real world and give new PKM users a leg up.
​• Host your own workshop. Do you have an idea for a short presentation and Q&A or a workshop you’d like to trial? Test your first iteration in the Ness Labs community and get feedback. We promote all sessions here in the newsletter.

All of these and future events are included in the price of the membership (only $49 for one year), as well as access to our courses, workshop library, and a dedicated space to track your tiny experiments.

Until next week, take care!
Anne-Laure.