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At the moment, I'm beginning to work out how to let parts of the 'relaxed' me back into my life as the 'productive' me.
Being overly 'productive' usually leaves me feeling drained, grumpy and empty.
@David: I'm glad that productivity hacks helped. And I completely agree that they can be useful and helpful.
My manager's groomed me to focus on outcomes over activities and work smarter not harder (In fact, I get penalized if I work more.) After all, who do you want running your projects ... the stressed out, full throttle guy?
That said, productivity's served me well, but as a means, not an end, and now I help others get their life back.
What can I say? I was at a blogger's conference and felt compelled to write some flagship content.
#9/25 stands out to me. So does #20 because I did almost fall deep into the mindset thinking if I am SUPER productive, I shall have that calm and peace. Its the other way around and not to be confused ... or you will find yourself ripping your hair out.
.. just saying.
Great list man
The really bad thing about "productivity is that it seems to go on for infinity. The way we tend to view it, there is no end to being productive, so you end up living your life like you are on a treadmill - moving, but going nowhere. What about deciding what needs to get done that day, doing it, and then stopping?
Over the last week or so I've started deleting stuff and firing people from my life that are time sucks. I've slept like a log since then. I've taking to doodling alot at the day job and working on plans for my true work. I've compressed what I need to do at the DJ into about two hours, though I sometimes delay in responding to emails, etc., as a tactical measure.
I was swayed to the dark side for awhile, but came to when I realize I would never invite David Allen over to my house for dinner, so why was I following him like a drone??
Thanks again.
Jay
1. Productivity is nothing more than a measurement of output over time. It is ONLY a measurement. No different than time or consumption or other econometric terms. It's equally applicable today as it was 70 years ago.
2. In your points 2 and 3, you would have us believe that we should be as productive as workers 70 years ago. Technology has seriously increased national productivity and we get much more done today than 70 years ago. If you think about the definition of productivity (output/time), you will realize that you can have significantly increased productivity in the same amount of time or in less time if output increases.
3. Your point 17 just doesn't make sense. Computerization and technology have increased productivity significantly over 70 years ... that's a fairly well accepted economic argument.
4. Your points 9 and 25 seem the same to me ... guess you really wanted to have a 25 point list ;) To both statements, I would point to my first statement that productivity is only a metric. Productivity cannot be designed. There are "systems" that can be designed to help you increase output in a given amount of time.
The bottom line is that productivity systems can help you meet your goals if your goals are inline with increasing output in a given time. However, not everyone shares that goal and therefore will not have the same means to that end (i.e. productivity systems).
One more thing. Can you clarify what you meant about "More technology often leads to decreased productivity." I disagree with you on this one but you might have a different take on this so I would like to hear your alternative analysis.
As a business owner, productivity is always in the forefront, however, as much as we like to get more done each day, it's the accuracy of the work we strive for (even if it takes longer). Redos always end up costing money, and those losses go straight to the bottom line. Lower profits mean less benefits for employees, upgrades of equipment, etc....
Overworked employees do make more mistakes, and with a lack of rest, negativity can also result.
It's a fine line (some) employers walk. You want to provide a good wage for an employee, but also make enough money to cover your overhead and see a profit as well. If greed enters the picture, the equation changes.
For those who hate their jobs or feel they are not getting paid enough for their efforts, the opportunities self employment offers, is an option to consider.
I believe you are on to something here and it's exciting to see! Take #25 and run with it. Also, don't beat yourself up for making a list. This time it's a means of creating simplicity, not a means of attracting blog traffic, as follows...
Keep going in this direction:
1. Productivity is another word, such as wealth, success and happiness that must be defined by the individual. Through the lens of the business world, it is not designed to translate into something positive (i.e. happiness) for the employee. It is designed to translate into a better bottom line for owners and investors.
2. Productivity must be a personal endeavor. For example, I started my own business. In a financial context, I'm not as "productive" as I could be. In a happiness context, I'm more "productive" than I've ever been. It's a matter of priorities...
3. In a business context, our capitalistic society demands productivity. As long as consumers demand lower prices for goods and services and investors demand increasingly higher returns on their investments, increases in productivity (by way of technology and squeezing more work for less pay out of employees) is absolutely necessary.
4. Productivity should not be about doing more things in the same amount of time or less. Productivity should be about prioritizing our lives so that they align with our values and this is made possible through self-awareness.
6. Self-awareness does this: It aligns "who we are" with "what we do."
Keep moving in this direction! Your finding meaning and purpose here! Great job!
For me, being productive is not about getting 24 hours of work done in a 16 hour day. It's getting 8 hours of work done in a 4-5 hour day and having time to go do this - http://hdbizblog.com/journal/2008/04/19/kayakin...
Productivity is about getting DONE. When you are done, you can STOP WORKING and live your life, doing things that you enjoy.
Which artist was it that said something like, "The secret to making great art is knowing when to stop."
As far as being just as productive as seventy years ago, we are thinking about productivity as did the Capitalists of Industrial Revolution era. The hyper-technological world can provide the contemporary worker with more, especially more free time to self-actualize and ultimately embody greater capacity/capability.
Clay- great post! I had no idea that you were the white-collared worker's Karl Marx.
I will be either getting ready to work, travelling, desperately trying to find guards to cover sites, or listening to my cretinous boss whinging and demanding answers to pointless questions for 16 hours today.
I am doing this because I thought my previous job doing very similar work for 9 hours a day at the same pay rate 30 minutes from my house did not pay enough.
What the hell do I do that for?
This one is a winner. I have heard that in the USA when you start a job you usually have around 8-12 days of holiday.
Is that true? In the UK it is something between 20-30. In my company we work 7.5 hours a day instead of 7 (I don't include 1 hour break) and we have 30 days holiday. It is great when you have a family.
Clay, regarding your computer... buy a Mac. Seriously. I saved a lot of time. New switch stories coming soon on switchstories.com.
I wrote 90,000 words about my frustration of being a corporate worker and how inefficient corporates actually are, even after all their efficiency drives, and how utterly pointless corporates make our lives if we were only honest enough to see that our jobs and job titles aren't really what we were born to become.
There's a lot to be said about the antiquated ways in which we run businesses and employ people. Up until the industrial age 'people' were paid for a task. After that time 'staff' were paid by the hour and so became somewhat disconnected from the task. The task mattered less than the time.
We still live under the shadow of the Victorian culture.
I say learn what you need to within someone else's business, then drop out and experience life by taking full control of it and starting your own business steering clear of a major dependence on corporates.
Right off the bat, the picture was so frightning, I didn't want to continue reading! That has come to represent a nightmere existence to me.
But I did read, and nice job.
I found the corporation that I worked in to be a study in inefficency. It was amazing. Meetings about having meetings about having meetings. When are you supposed to work?
Notice, the only real meaningful note of dissent in the cmments so far are from Barbara Swafford, who has the best of both worlds: as an employer, high profits/time are great; as an entrepreneur, she gets to hold onto the profits of her job well done. It's the same thing you see from freelancers, even when they hate their clients -- at the end of the day, they can take pride in their work *and* they reap the benefits of it.
I'm goping to disagree with 25 slightly, though. The idea that productivity should be designed around lives suggests that it's something *other* than life -- which in turn suggests that you aren't being productive when you play with your kids, invent a new dish for dinner, or stare at the wall thinking about your latest argument with your spouse or girl/boyfriend. Productivity doesn't need to be "designed around" these things, as if once you were done you could get on with being productive, it needs to be part of those things, so we can get over the stupid guilt and stress of "not working" when we really need to be doing something that on the surface doesn't look like work.
Or were we supposed to disagree, since I'm clearly not an anti-hackiste?
However, to be honest, greater productivity does not necessarily flow from a quiet mind. As the mind quiets, at least for me, life develops a certain stillness, a peacefulness, that is quite unconcerned. Interestingly, I find that doing too much stuff feels like a burden, and I have grateful shed many things. I'm just more content and happy with LESS. And from that place, why in God's name do I want to get "productive" so I can get more of the junk that I just got rid of?
Well done, Clay, well done.
With the easy of having broadband, there is virtually no reason for people to work 40 hours in an office. Why not 30 from home? I bet most people could get the same amount of work done.
Fancy Meeting You in a place like this! The best thing about this post is that there are so many points on which to disagree and expound upon. This conversation is definitely worth pursuing and building a community around. Well said "slight disagreement" with #25, didn't put that into the context of my personal life not being qualified as productive - there is one to think on. However, what I'm inclined to say is that my personal life isn't qualifiable in the current definition of productivity I mean, with my family ,it's just friggin' getting high on life.
I think this is fabulous. I do benefit from a certain amount of self-ass-kicking, otherwise known as conscious systems to be more productive, but it only goes so far. At the end of the day, noodling matters. (Tati is, of course, the poster child for brilliant noodling.)
It seems like we are fighting ourselves.
I remember growing up in the 60s and 70s and hearing that technology would reduce our work hours with robots, etc., and that we would all have jet packs. I'm still waiting on both, but I really want that jet pack.
This is a great manifesto. I think people are so consumed with productivity that they confuse productivity with happiness.
The problem with this mindset is their determining their happiness based on achievements, how many widgets they use and how much of a circus they can create multi-tasking. It's putting happiness in the future, instead of the present, the only place you can find fulfillment and peace.
Also, just thought I'd mention that the word itself has had its meaning distorted a bit. People use the word productive when the really mean efficient. Really its meaning is closer to prolific. Think artist, not cubicle slave.
Hyperfocusing on productivity often gets in the way of the messy, circuitous, and discursive routes of personal development.
The virtue hidden in talk of productivity seems to me to be frugality or thrift. In other words, using your time, money, and energy well. Waste not, want not.
In the modern age, the virtue of frugality has been perverted by the economy's demand for increased production.
And there are always competing virtues or values at play.
"Increased productivity should equal less time on the job. If you
James, Organize IT
In my work with clients, I talk about productivity all the time, so I had to keep checking myself as I read this to see whether or not I could agree with you without contradicting my own work!
Turns out, there was no conflict of interest, and I am quite relieved to say so!
Your manifesto has me noticing how my own relationship to productivity is very different from the traditional way of thinking. More than that, it has me thinking I should be more vocal about creating an alternative context for productivity in the business world.
I think our society stands to benefit greatly from a productivity model that promotes balance, clarity, self-expression and fulfillment.
I'm inspired to work on that. Thank you for stirring the pot!
Erek
Warm regards,
Clay
@Clay: It seems like your blog is a cry for people to stop this endless tinkering for tinkering sake and actually live life in the moment. I suck at that and when my conscience kicks in, and I feel guilty for letting either the tyranny of the urgent or the endless reworking of my "system" get in the way of living, the voice I hear in my head is usually David. As far as I can tell DA or the folks promoting GTD officially don't have a stake in how much you take on, in fact they'd tell you to take on less, but merely want you to actually take responsibility for what you pile on your plate and to keep it from distracting you when you trying to nothing or be present in the moment.
GTD has some fantastic concepts, but like anything else, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Life is to be lived, not hacked. Doing more does not equal getting more done if what you are doing is meaningless.
I recommend reading GTD, taking what's useful, ditching the rest ... and living your life. There's good stuff in there. But don't be a slave to a system.
Clay, you should also highlight voting for that on here
It's really important to question why we are striving to be so productive.
Cheers!
www.simplyqueer.com
I think # 11 "The best way to increase productivity is often to quit a lot of things" is a very good tip. Often time people have too much stuff on their minds and life which are unnecessary. I think minimalism (http://thinkneat.blogspot.com/2008/06/minimalis...) in life automatically boosts productivity
- Unfortunately, wages+benefits are controlled by the laws of supply and demand as much by cultural/corporate norms. If everyone's productivity rises the same amount, relatively speaking, no one's productivity rises. Unless I'm much more productive than those around me today rather than how people were 40 years ago, I will not command amazingly higher wages. It's like Scott Adams (Dilbert) talking about how if there was a pill that suddenly made sleep unnecessary, the workforce would effectively double (or so) and wages would cut in half.
Again, I agree with you that we should work less, just because we don't need to work nearly as much we do (40 hours is totally arbitrary nowadays) but disagree with your argument. I also don't think corporations are supposed to give us this, we have to get it for ourselves. For myself, I work part-time and take the monetary hit for the extra time (which makes me happier than the extra money would anyway). You can also sometimes find pro-rated full-time jobs. I also recently quit my part-time job because it was soul crushing, but I have some money saved up so this isn't an option for many people.
- Medieval peasants didn't enjoy the standard of living we enjoy. The poorest among us have access to better resources than kings of old.
- One of the supporters of the 40 hour work week was Henry Ford, who believed that people working less would be better for the economy, turned out he was write. Going back to the medieval age is fine, but let's not forget what happened before 1940s.
- As someone has mentioned in the comments already, Many places in Europe already work less than Americans/Canucks do. Blogs such as this, 4 hour work week and flex-work agreements suggest that we are moving towards a social change that may signal less work for us over here in North America, too. For myself, I'd love to be able to take a siesta every day and party into the night.
- You think that's messed up? A prostitute (devine brown) made 1.6 million dollars for fellating one man (Hugh Grant), which was interrupted, so I'd imagine she prolly made 1.6 million dollars as a consequence of less than 20 minutes of work.
Like I said, I agree with the spirit of what you say, but I disagree with your arguments. Keep it up!
for a guest post.
You're on target with the productivity list.
Obviously, there are multiple perspectives that can be raised with this topic, including that of the employer -- most often made out to be an evil entity that has nothing better to do than to suck the life out of its worker bees.
Clearly, the model in place in most organizations isn't the best we should be able to come up with. Some observers would claim it's like democracy -- a horrible system...just better than any of the others out there. I don't agree with that opinion but I can understand management's reluctance to toss out the known for the unknown.
Perhaps if business wasn't accountable to "the street" every 90 days, with the impending doom and gloom is you fall short of projections or are trending badly, there would be less emphasis on David Allen and others who sell management that they are the answer to hitting the numbers. There would be time to take a breath and consider alternatives.
The unfortunate truth is that small business generally copies big business, so any practice like GTD spreads virally and before you know it it's everywhere. Great for David Allen, as well as the person who follows him with the "next big thing."
If it is to change it will be because a charismatic leader will emerge with a different system that incorporates beneficial concepts for both the company and individual, and where their output blows the doors off the competition. The business media will fawn all over the leader who gets a book deal, does the interview circuit, and reveals his/her secrets for the "new" corporation. Then, the copycats will remake the workplace in his/her image and all will be right with the world.
Until David Allen stages his comeback.
:)