Recently I have noticed that being in a constrained environment like using a mobile phone to write an e-mail makes me more concious of how I perform. For example when sending an e-mail I try to be as to the point as possible or when checking out the news on RSS I tend to read only those items thar are necessary.
This looks very similar to the consumption patterns in rich vs poor countries where people tend to spend extra when they have more moneynon items that they don’t need much. Also it looks like the way we take on designing for the environment where we use only those things necessary and avoid excessives.
I am not sure if this improves our productivity though. Some times we need to go through hoops to achieve the most simplest of tasks.