This is a post that I’ve had in draft form all week. Friday afternoon seems like a good time for it.
Falling Off the Productivity Wagon is intriguing, really. Here’s the premise: You’ve been working hard. Then not so hard. And maybe it’s because you’ve been checking email often, or you’ve been sick, or something personal has come up. But it’s time to get back on track with these tips!
Generally speaking, I loathe the notion of “productivity” in terms of workplace behavior because it is notoriously hard to measure on an individual level. Yes, if you sew jeans, you can track the number of pairs per hour. But few of us can keep a top pace for long. Because if we were meant to be “productive” human beings all the time, I’m pretty sure we would have been born with gears (and even then, machines break!).
You cannot be productive all the time at work, and I’m not even sure what that means since I think productivity is pretty invisible at times.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:21 am
Brilliant, Ms. T. You’ve articulated something that I’ve been mulling over a while. For example, I’m a very productive person at my office and in my field. However, with work being slow lately, I find myself dragging a bit more, even when I have something to do. I require a certain amount or pressure/certain length of to-do list to get thigns done quickly. Even with that amount of pressure/work, I still am not at 100% all the time. As my colleagues and I slip into our 30s, we’re finding this to be true. We’re NOT machines–we don’t go hellbent-for-leather all the time, and now and then we have off-days, through which we either muddle the best we can, or go home and try again tomorrow.