Comments on: On the Horizon: The New Productivity

By: Daryl

Daryl — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:08:16 +0000

No problem. I’m really glad that you guys at WLC are supportive of my thoughts, because I really am excited about what you guys are doing.

By: Brad Blackman

Brad Blackman — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:51:43 +0000

I finally got around to reading this (it’s been sitting in my Instapaper for a while). I like your approach to the “Productivity is dead” idea, it’s better thought-out than mine. Like you I wonder what’s next for “productivity,” and like James I wonder what to call it. I vote for “effectivity!” Just kidding. As one of the founders of work.life.creativity I’m inclined to lean toward the life-balance idea over the old industrial era meaning of “productivity.”

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing with us.

By: Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:06:07 +0000

Thanks for mentioning the WorkLifeCreativity blog, we are definitely looking to create a place where people can share ideas and help each other find that balance.

I do not believe that productivity is dead, rather the emphasis is changing. As you mentioned, it is becoming much less about “cranking widgets” and more about lovingly hand-crafting these widgets to fill a particular need. And do it in an elegant and fulfilling way.

Thanks for sharing your positive outlook on this topic (and reach out to me, I’d love to have you run a guest-post on blog.WLC!)

By: James @ Organize IT

James @ Organize IT — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:21:30 +0000

Great read. The whole idea of productivity as fostered by GTD has certainly faded away, but then that to me was all about efficiency – doing things well, without any real focus on what exactly you were doing (it had stuff like the vertical map but the overall focus of GTD certainly isn’t in being selective about your work). It’s no surprise that simplicity, as fostered by sites like Zen Habits, has grown popular. It does the opposite – help you to identify the real value in your life, but without any real focus on how efficiently you then work on it.

Obviously the ideal situation is a balance between efficiency and effectiveness. For whatever reason most systems and books only tend to focus on one or the other though I think that’s slowly shifting to cope with the information age.

Of course, the issue is what to call this shift. I stick with productivity because it still sums up the whole efficient AND effective mentality better than anything else (certainly better than “simplicity” or even “creativity” as some people have taken to calling it). Unfortunately the word still has the old industrial era meaning attached to it. Maybe we can change that?