What is novelty seeking bias productivity?

Novelty seeking bias productivity is a concept in personal epistemology: Common traps like perfectionism people-pleasing and novelty-seeking that distort priorities.

Example: You sit down Monday morning with a clear priority stack. The product launch is number one. The hiring pipeline is number two. The team retrospective is number three. By Wednesday, you have spent six hours polishing a slide deck for the retrospective that no one will remember, two hours researching a new project management tool you saw on a podcast, agreed to mentor a colleague's intern because they asked nicely, and stayed late debugging a feature that your junior engineer could have handled — because you wanted it done right. The product launch has not moved. You have been busy every waking minute, and none of that busyness served your stated top priority. You did not ignore your priorities. You got trapped by five different distortion mechanisms, each one disguised as something reasonable.

This concept is part of Phase 35 (Priority Systems) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for priority systems.