On Productivity (and its real cost)

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Bency Goldman, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

This is such a vast topic and the word ‘productivity’ itself will mean different things to different people, so I think I will start with the macro (production), and then go down into the micro (individual productivity), and that would be from the angle of white-collar/knowledge work. I will also try to keep it general because productivity represents different outcomes for different people. For example, if you are a 25-year-old working professional, effective productivity could mean how you can get more done in less time (time/task management), and if you are a 45-year-old entrepreneur, productivity could mean how you can grow your businesses without you needing to work more (delegation/partnerships).

Let us zoom out now and clarify something — like many outputs in life, various inputs can lead to the same result. The question, however, is “At what cost does the chosen method come with?” Eg; The cost of entrepreneurship is higher than the cost of employment, but the rewards are greater. And within Entrepreneurship there is no one system to reach the desired output (certainly none that act as guarantors).

I mean the basic mechanism of production of our own species has multiple ‘input costs’; you can create a human through the act of rape and violence, or you can create a human through the act of love and intimacy. (Extreme albeit effective example)

As another current example, you can generate electricity by abusing the Earth’s resources, or you can generate electricity through the Earth’s most abundant energy resource (the Sun). Unfortunately, in the world of capitalism, the majority of productivity comes at a cost that is far higher than the outputs generated. Large-scale food production and global health impact (cancer) is another example — on the surface, it’s a very productive model, but the cost of it is fatal. The definition of ‘the cost’ however is not equally agreed upon.

Individual Productivity

When we refer to the cost of an individual’s economic productivity, it is far too often only discovered in hindsight, years into the process, when it is sometimes too late. This cost I refer to is in the individual’s wellbeing and personal life. I’ve met far too many overweight, cancer-ridden multi-millionaires whose families literally can’t wait for them to die. They have built economic empires, but they have three ex-wives and all their children hate them. After all one thing that we cannot produce more of is — time. One of the very few truly limited things in this world (although some delusional Americans in Silicon Valley are trying to hack more of it). If dedicated solely to economic gain, we forsake the things that truly make us feel fulfilled in our lives — loving relationships, doing good, and spiritual upliftment.

I know of many narcissistic multi-millionaires who donate large amounts of money to (unconsciously) soothe the pain of the life they have built which is far too unbearable to face. Yet they are respected and praised by society on the outside, while behind closed doors, they have no friends and their intimate relationships are riddled with drama and literal violence.

Why such a bitter tone Bency? Well, simply to illustrate one’s productivity needs to be assessed with the mindset of a property investor — with long-term thinking. One has to ask, what cost am I willing to pay (input) for the reward (outcome)? Now this does not mean one cannot be productive, financially successful, and happy, with fulfilling relationships. But it ain’t easy and requires brutal management of one’s time, energy, and focus.

Now, let’s look at individual productivity with a first-principles approach.

The How

There are thousands of books and strategies for increasing one’s productivity, and I don’t think we need another article on it so I won’t go into detail here. What I will say is this, most of the stuff is helpful but surface level. So yes, it is helpful to break down tasks and to organize one’s day in a priority framework, it is helpful to set a time for each task — and it is helpful to know how to be productive in general. But that is simply a framework for production, a system by which the human factory will operate. I will share, however, if it may help sift through the noise on productivity hacks — the greatest productivity/procrastination hack ever: Just sit down and start…

Which brings me to the more important piece…

The What

What you insert into that framework of production will be far more impactful than simply keeping busy within that framework. Two hours of high-impact work will outperform eight hours of low-impact work any day of the week. You can be busy on 8 things but not get anywhere or be hyper-productive on one 1 thing and get much further. We all know people who love to tell us how busy they always are. Truly productive people don’t have time to tell you how busy they are, they are far too busy being productive. In fact some of the most successful people I know don’t have social media accounts (or at least don’t run them), because they are actually too busy. So in short, what you choose to work on is more of a determining factor of successful production, than how you work on it.

And this brings me to the most important piece…

The Why

Recall a memory when time flew by so fast you didn’t even know if it was daytime or nighttime, and despite having gotten a lot done, you seem to still have energy! Incredible. This is what is referred to as ‘flow state’. I believe when we enter into flow state it is a strong signal for what work is in greatest synchronicity with our personal ‘why’. It may take many ‘what’ tasks to figure out our ‘why’ tasks. People with ADHD will understand this concept very well, there are one or two things they can do in complete focus mode, yet everything else seems an impossible stretch for five minutes. These are not just our areas of strength, but our areas of authentic desire and curiosity. The deeper our why, and the closer that task or input is tied to it — the easier it is to be productive in that area. Luckily for us, the brain can create meaning from absolutely anything — the ultimate productivity hack ;)

This brings us to what I cannot label, and as such will be referred to as…

The Unexplained

This may be a bit esoteric and abstract for some, but I have witnessed this phenomenon first-hand, in both my own creative and entrepreneurial ventures and the lives of many others.

There have been many vehicles of production in history that simply never returned their desired outputs, despite being of the same efficiency level as their direct competition (arts & commerce). Why is that?

Yes, every management professor and economist will have their subjective (slightly arrogant) take on why it failed to produce, yes every journalist and art critic will have their genius take — but no one really knows. They just need to write something and sound smart.

There is also the human fallacies of time and traction, which very simply translates to — we don’t know what the fuck is happening outside of our sphere of reality. Some spirituals can argue it is the energy and intention that is at the core of one’s desire that determines its success, however many people have had good intentions and directed positive energies to their ventures/art and they never succeeded. Yes, I’m about to bring God into the picture so if you’re an atheist, you essentially have two choices — close the tab, or change the word ‘God’ to ‘Universe’.

It is quintessential human arrogance to believe that we solely determine the outputs of our world through our own efforts. If they could have built a model that predicted every market movement we would have no market at all because as soon as it was all pre-determined the economic variables that create the structure would crumble (eg; if supply and demand are forecasted with 100% accuracy-the entire concept would then dissolve).

Go ask any seasoned investor as to why company X failed and company X succeeded, and the arrogant ones will have their answers, and the enlightened ones will tell you, they have no fucking idea why some win and some lose — they just bet on the highest probability of who and what will win and why. But ultimately, if it was all up to us — we would have no such concepts of winning and losing, as succeeding or failing, because the formula would have been proven, repeated, and then either made redundant or have delivered abundant wealth to each and every human being on Earth. Ok, this article is getting way too productive now. I digress.

Perhaps we should all just do our best, with our best, and leave the rest to the Universe/God…