Too Busy Being Unproductive to Learn to Be Productive

Jack, if productivity is the wrong measure, what's the right one? "Throughput" doesn't seem to capture all aspects of effectiveness either - so do you propose some kind of personalised "ROI" measure?

I started using the Getting Things Done methodology in January which has been a great productivity booster for me. But I had to do some customization for it to fit the demands of my workplace and completing a dissertation.

I think what would help to increase personal productivity is to develop a framework with a list of best practices. This way, people could fashion a personalized productivity system that they will use because they co-created it.

I agree with you about productivity as the wrong measure but I think effectiveness may be too vague also. There has to be some measure that is tied into achieving the person's goals which should be behind the To-Do list.

As usual, another great read Dr. Vinson.

And, as usual, I shall chime in with my two cents.

I am currently enjoying Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock. I do not normally read books that are over 30 years old but so much of what he discussed has come to pass that it is well worth a read.

One of the things discussed in the book is the fact that the rate of change is constantly increasing and placing more and more demand on us to keep pace with it. In other words, we are going to have to become more efficient and productive each passing second. Knowledge Management, Time Management and computer skills are a necessity to success. In today's digital era, it means using technology to be more efficient.

I personally discovered time management when I was in middle school. I read a book titled How to get Control of your Time and your Life by Alan Lakien. The book emphasized Goal Oriented time management. I think that the "Getting things done" method is similar to what this book discussed. The reality is that effectiveness is how many of our goals we achieve. In that sense, I feel effectiveness is a pretty good yardstick.

This is where I become concerned. Most people are too hypnotized by the glitz of the technology. I have seen meetings adjourn for a team to put together a power point presentation when the dry erase board would have generated a solution in fraction the time. The other thing that is frightening is that most of the research I have read about the average person using technology is rather dismal. The authors of Technostress did a four year study regarding how people adapted and accepted technology. I am not going to cover every point in the study but there is one that is very relevant to this topic.

The acceptance of the technology correlated to the training received in a manner somewhat counter-intuitive. The technology was most accepted when the user received excellent training or no training at all. Average training led to poor acceptance. This means that people who are going to teach others to focus on effectiveness really have their work cut out for them.

I hope your readers do not take this post the wrong way. I am a serious information junkie and I love technology. I am also aware that I am a minority. The fact is that we need more people like you who offer viable solutions to an ever increasing problem.

The quote you used in your post is very much true. Consider the brain drain from just passwords. We should use unique passwords for each account and somehow keep them secure. My solution is Passkeep. Other than one long password to access the DB on my USB drive I do not need to clutter my mind with anything else. I back up the DB to my desk top nightly and my mind is free to worry about other things. Most of my co-workers consider this too geeky. I even know co-workers who keep all their passwords in a Word document on their desktop!

Sorry for the length of this comment but I am passionate about this subject. The fact is that anyone who is going to try and help people adapt to this era of technostress has a real challenge before them. I see many, many people totally frustrated by our new era of technology. The challenge is to give them excellent instruction so they learn to use it well. If they experience any frustration in attempting to use it is akin to an electric shock to a rat in a Skinner box.

[I've posted this to comments as well]

What we need to know (in terms of measures) is whether we are reaching our goals or not. If we've taken action that moves us in the wrong direction, that's probably the wrong action. (If we didn't know that it would be wrong in advance, then it was a good learning experience, and we can do something different next time.)

The difficulty with productivity, as it is typically used, is that it simply measures output without looking at direction. For example: I did ten things, but only one of them contributed to my long-term goals. Even worse, two of them distracted from my ability to meet my goals.

I'm not sure what the final personal measure would look like, however. I'd rather have something that showed how much progress I've made, rather than an accounting of how many things I've done.

Jack,
When you add velocity models to productivity, you can track direction, behaviour and profit simultaneously.

Profit Velocity® is good basic starting model. I believe Maxager got concept from Goldratt. http://www.maxager.com/home.htm

Velocity management (productivity) is accomplishing something in relation to a set of pre-determined velocity models. These models need not be complex to be effective and most are triads such as profit velocity.

Personal and organizational goals work best when converted to velocity models. I believe they have great potential to make people more effective and efficient.

You take a set of generic velocity models and modify them to match the needs/wants of the organization. A good velocity model should be an easy to understand 'reality test' that when used appropriately can be very effective.