> It still costs them the same for a day of my work, whether they slow me down or not.
Yes, and they know it too. People often value your attention more than your productivity, and with good reason. Think about how many meetings you've been in and steered somebody clear of a trap just because you were there. Or how some input you give from meeting with the CEO could impact the direction of the company. Your attention is probably more valuable than your productivity more often than you think.
It's an excellent way to protect yourself from actually having to work too much : always act and pretends like you're super busy. People will bother you less. My productivity increased a lot since I started acting busy to deflect non sensical requests and questions
> It is too easy (and satisfying) to prioritise 10 small urgent tasks, complete and check them off, and feel productive
Very true! I avoided this by doing all the unimportant tasks I could as early as possible, or by ruthless prioritisation (since the person I'm cheating by focusing on busywork is me).
If you have a constant stream of urgent tasks always pushing down the important tasks, you have a workload problem & need to address that first (i.e. by hiring an assistant or reducing your obligations).
For starters, a lot of people have negative productivity. Think of someone intensely anti-social who drags down the productivity of people around them.
> I've noticed that waiting until the last minute to do something you need to do OFTEN results in never having to do it at all. You end up doing only things that really needed to get done.
Don't tell my boss this, but I have noticed it too.
> I find that people that are always there on the dot tend not to have very much going on in their lives
Counter anecdote. I strive to be on time especially when I know being late will waste the other person's time because I want to be respectful of their time. Many times I've sacrificed my own productivity to be on time. Also, for me, it's a matter of integrity. If I tell someone I'm going to be there at a certain time, I've given them my word. Barring extenuating circumstances (e.g. car accident) I do my best to do what I said I would do.
> Btw if somebody knows this kind of thinking from a different source I would appreciate some pointers, because I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this but I haven't stumbled upon it yet and I would much prefer to point people to that direction.
I just finished the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time management for mortals. Similar thinking in that a lot of suffering and procrastination is caused by not accepting the reality of our finite time on earth, that we can never do it all, and we have to make tough choices and most people try avoid the anxiety of facing those by distracting themselves. I loved the book, and your comment, as refreshing take on “productivity” but I recognize it’s also extremely difficult for many people to practice.
> Oddly enough, scheduled distractions may be worse than unscheduled ones. If you know you have a meeting in an hour, you don't even start working on something hard.
This hit a little too close to home, since I'm procrastinating working on something right now because lunch is scheduled to be in ten minutes and won't be able to start anything meaningful…
> You look busy enough to qualify as working, giving you time to actually think.
This is so messed up - and yet so interesting as a direct result of that.
I've only ever considered the idea of "looking busy" in the sense of whether or not someone is trying to optimize for shirking actual mental engagement.
I never thought of how doing that can actually make room to think. But that's so logically obvious once you mush the two ideas together!
I say this is messed up because I can totally see this being both necessary and helpful in certain situations. Wow.
> Herbert Simon talked about this when we were still sending men to the moon [1].
Cool, thanks for sharing. It's sobering to realize when people have already discussed things we face today
> mostly I think it is up to us to close, ignore or turn away.
Yeah. I feel like there are some successful people who say that stopping doing things is as important as doing things. Or, they say giving up control is useful. For every time that you are able to give up control, you can move comfortably to a new role within an organization. Giving attention to all the news can be seen as a form of control we're attempting to exert on the world, says me, another guilty person
> What I fear the most is that by choosing to do so leaves us appearing lazy and/or disengaged in important professional and personal situations.
That's fear of missing out talking. Tell him to shut it :)
> Social pressure keeps my anti-productive tendencies in check.
As someone with ADHD, there are a lot of seeming “anti-productive distractions” I use to help me focus, but which would never be allowed in an office environment.
I’ve measured it: I’m more long-term productive at work when I’m also doing chores, talking to friends, petting my cat, watching YouTube videos, etc. at the same time. The social pressure to not be doing these things (or the impossibility of doing these things in an office), starves my brain of the input required to solve work problems. If the only thing I have to focus on is work… then I don’t.
> Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus.
I'm always confused by people who struggle so much with being able to quickly answer a question and get back to what they were doing.
Also, here you're prioritising your work over someone else's.
> I simply can't stand incessantly being asked questions, I view it as a type of interruption
Well, you are being interrupted. But you're being paid to be interrupted.
> I have purposefully started training my friends by being erratic with my texts/messages/e-mails
I would very much like to do what you say but with a million interrupts a day, it is now or never. If I neglect / defer something now, I would likely get back to it next week. Even for work. I do find time to focus 4 hours on some work activities but those are just the high priority visible stuff otherwise maybe if someone did not remind and make it a priority maybe it was anyways not a priority. But then things slip through the crack once in a while.
Perhaps but I'm sure the primary thought in their subconscious is "don't back down or they will punish you by inventing new burdens for you."
reply