Early in my career, I kept hearing senior leaders saying something to the effect of, “If I want to get something done, I’m going to give it to the busiest person in my organization….” I’m not quite quoting it in the right context, at the time, the busiest people seemed to be the most productive people.
Fast forward to today. Everyone is busy! Or at least seem to present themselves as busy. We are overwhelmed with information and tasks. Despite all the productivity tools we have, despite the ability to search to quickly get information, despite the ability to leverage LLMs and related tools to help get and make sense of all that we face; we are busier than we’ve ever been.
Just think about it, can you look around your workplace and see people less hassled, calmer, more satisfied with what they are accomplishing?
Despite all these things, we are still overwhelmed and overloaded.
And, based on performance data, increasingly we are failing in achieving our goals, and we are less happy in our jobs.
All these tools, technologies are supposed to free up our time. They are supposed to eliminate things that can be automated.
Let’s dive into some of the data:
- Information overload. In the 1970s each of us (or our parents) handled about 1000 pieces of correspondence a year. Today it’s 80,000, plus all the texts, slack messages we get. Despite the promise of technology, it seems to actually be aggravating the problem.
- Interruption culture. We live in a world of constant interruptions–internally and externally imposed. We see that we interrupt ourselves every minute or less. And the time it takes to refocus our attention is even greater. As a result, we lose 40% of everyday in the interrupt/refocus cycle, accomplishing nothing.
- Search time. Despite the overwhelming availability of information, we spend 1-3 hours a day searching for information. And that’s stayed constant for over 25 years. Sometimes I think we use research as a refuge for our lack of confidence or certainty.
- Reporting, administrivia, unproductive meetings. Despite all the tools, we still seem to be mired in so much of what consumed time in the past.
I could go on, but as we each look at our calendars, it’s madness. We are busier than we ever have been, but we aren’t producing the results we expect or even the same results we produced in the past.
What do we do about it? How do we regain sanity, or at least some level of manageability in our days?
I don’t know that I have great solutions, to a degree I suffer from the same. I have been realizing much of this is self inflicted rather than externally inflicted. And I tend to think, most of our productivity problems are more self inflicted than other inflicted.
As much as I try to adopt good habits, I struggle. At the moment, I feel some level of “success,” I’ve only 8 open windows on my computer. Though, I get distracted when I see the message count in my email and LinkedIn go up as I type these words (I just closed them to minimize the distraction). Then in the back of my mind, I worry about completing this before the meeting that starts in just under 30 minutes.
But to tell you the truth, I’m not sure it’s the busyness that bothers me. I’m less concerned about the amount of work that I do, I’m more concerned with what I accomplish doing that work. At least the way I measure my personal success is what I accomplish, not how much I’ve worked. Am I growing the business, exceeding what I had planned? Am I creating value in each project with clients, using their time well? Am I learning/growing in the process? Am I making a difference in the lives of people I engage, which makes a difference in how I feel.
I’m doing all the normal things, closing my feeds–looking at them only a few times a day to minimize distraction. Being more purposeful about managing interruptions. As I look at the data and my personal habits, it’s these interruptions and the FOMO one experiences that have the biggest impact on my time.
To be honest, while I’m involved in some fascinating/high impact things, nothing that comes across my desk needs to be dealt with now. I group things that come up for the end of the day. And then when I look at them, I decide whether I need to do anything at all, whether I need to do it now, or whether it’s something I can assign to someone else. It’s surprising how many can just be eliminated or deferred.
Research, at least for me, has never been a huge time drain. Perhaps it’s the experience, but I’ve learned to focus on, “What are the critical things I need to know for this meeting?” As a result, I can prepared fairly effectively. And, while perhaps arrogant, I’ve seen so much that while I may not have the answers, I’m comfortable with creating value in the conversations. Somehow, I’ve found the “just enough” level of research.
I’ve stopped some terrible habits–like having the news or a podcast going in the background. I’m learning to re-appreciate the “Sounds of Silence.”
This is a bit of an odd habit, but I’ve restarted my journaling. I had journaled daily for years, but about a year ago I stopped. Recently, I restarted it. It’s such a powerful tool for me to reflect on what I have done during the day and what want to do in the coming day.
It’s a continued battle, I fall back into bad habits, I allow myself to be distracted and interrupted. But, at least for the moment, I’m feeling like I’m accomplishing more of what’s important, caring less about all the other stuff.
How are you dealing with this issue?
Afterword: Some of the data in this article came from a terrific post: “The Productivity Paradox of 21st Century Knowledge Work.”
Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this post. I love their take on this!
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