How to make your day more productive, but at your own pace

How productive was your day? It’s a tough question, particularly for some remote workers in the past year and a half.

Part of the problem is the definition of productivity. As a macroeconomic measure, means the total production per hour of work. That is, for example, the number of pans that a worker can make in an hour. At a deeper level, measuring productivity is much more complex. How, for example, is the productivity of a security guard or a neurologist measured?

The productivity it also has another meaning, one that has spread to the corridors of self-help with titles similar to “How to Be a Productivity Ninja” and “Work Smart.” In that sense, productivity has become a buzzword, with an entire ecosystem of coaches and consultants They help people to accomplish one more task on their to-do lists.

Although the word is the same, the economy’s output in a quarter is not the same as that of any individual in a day. But the gap between the two ways of thinking about productivity It may be distorting our personal judgment of how much we are doing, and the pandemic has not helped.

In surveys, employees often say they are more productive working at home. But those who work remotely have had to deal with more interruptions and immediate concerns like childcare. The blurring of the boundaries between work and life has made it more difficult to assess how much work per hour is done in a day. Lack of motivation after a year and a half of pandemic boredom may also be reducing the achievements of a subset of workers. Even those who say they are just as productive may feel more alone, less satisfied, and not as committed.

Chris Bailey, productivity consultant and author of “The Productivity Project,” defined productivity as “Just do what we set out to do.”

But productivity also became “The currency of labor”he said, and it’s natural that people want more of that. “Often we take productivity as a predetermined goal without giving much thought to how we can make it work for us, instead of just looking for it without question, “he said.

As employers continue to try to discover ways to attract their employees and motivate them to return to the offices, how to get the most out of your workforce has become a managerial conundrum with broad economic implications. Some have already announced plans to give employees more flexibility, a nod to the idea that there is a relationship between total production and how people feel. Twitter said that employees who could do their work remotely could work from home forever.

Brigid Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab program at the New America think tank and author of the book “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time,” said that American culture had long believed that working harder meant working harder and being more productive, despite the flaws in that way of thinking. He pointed to the idea that there was a “productivity gulf”: workers are only productive for a certain number of hours, after that their productivity decreases and they can start to make mistakes.

“We have long assumed that There is a connection, wrong in fact, between long work, hard work and productivity and it has never been like thatSchulte said.

Limits for higher productivity

When the pandemic merged our professional and personal lives by forcing many of us to work from home, we learned a valuable lesson about technology. It can be an incredibly useful tool for communicating with colleagues. However, when used carelessly, it can harm our productivity. and our relationships. According to a study, When a digital distraction, such as a message, interrupts our work, it takes us on average twenty-three minutes to get back to the original task. So, in a hybrid work situation, respecting the limits will be crucial. Some recommendations:

When we work with colleagues in the office, we can resist the urge to converse through a chat window. To get the most out of being close to each other, consider engaging in a face-to-face conversation.

When we work with colleagues who are in a remote environment, a text message or an email would probably be good for quick conversations. However, for more serious talks, a phone or video call may be better, whenever necessary.

On days when you work from home and don’t have a physical separation between your work and personal life, you will need to make a more conscious effort to disconnect. Sometimes, the best way to set a limit is to have no technology at all. For example, you could set an alarm to go off at 5:00 PM, forcing you to leave your office space to finish your work obligations both physically and mentally.