The Illusion of Progress, and Thinking

How working smarter combats the illusion of productivity, but it still isn’t good enough to others.

I had the opportunity to plan a mental health conference in my final year as an undergrad. In addition to my honours’ project, full time classes, assisting in the research lab, TAing, running a chapter, and applying to grad school and scholarships, I was a network representative for this mental health group. I loved it, but it was no small feat, especially when we spent the week in March in Toronto to prepare for the conference.

I don’t need hindsight to realize I overworked myself. I didn’t take on each project I mentioned above expecting no work, but these opportunities arose so naturally that before I knew it I was experiencing my first panic attack in over a year. These opportunities came up, and admittedly the back of my mind was in tune with the thoughts of most others who considered it “good for grad school”. I think it’s fair to state a disclaimer: Grad School intrigued me, and of course I included these on my CV, but in the end I took these projects on out of interest, not out of looking interesting on paper. I think once we lose sight of the latter, we’re no longer enjoying ourselves. Sure, we need to prepare for the future, but we can’t forget what’s going on in front of us or the cost-benefit of only looking ahead.

Now, among the 12 other student representatives along with the entire staff working tirelessly before the summit, I had a role to facilitate a discussion panel. This panel would last maybe thirty minutes, and we had contacted the experts beforehand to clarify what we would discuss. Using this as a skeleton, we decided on which questions I should ask to prompt their responses, which order these questions will be asked, and estimate the time it took for each response. There were far more things going on to prepare for the summit, but at that time my priority was sorting my role as a facilitator. While the other representatives worked collaboratively, my turn came to work on this expert panel mostly independently until something cogent was formed.

I finally had a fairly clear picture as to how the thirty minute panel would play out. So, at this point I figured I should run through it, in my head, to see if I missed anything. I decided against writing anything out at this point — I had to really visualize it.

I was rehearsing how that twenty minutes would play out, not necessarily getting lost in my head, but more so using my head to visualize. I would introduce them this way, then invite them on stage, then transition to the questions, they would answer this way, leading me to ask for others to contribute and so on. I found this productive, and it mentally prepared me for that session. I sat there mentally rehearsing, eyes directed towards the ceiling, when my supervisor T.J. approached me. I felt it disrupted my process, and figured I would simply continue after she leaves.

As it turns out, T.J. approached me because it looked like I was daydreaming. To be fair I technically was, but when it’s directed daydreaming related to the job I argue it’s productive. I’m sure though, with the staff rushing to prepare it looked quite silly that I would be staring at the ceiling.

“Are you taking a break right now?”. I was genuinely shocked and hoped that T.J. would have known otherwise.
“No, I have everything written out, now I’m just running it through in my head”
“Well there’s a lot going on right now and I just want to make sure you’re working”
I smiled, and facetiously answered, “I am working, I’m thinking. I need to run this through.”

At this point I’m not quite sure if T.J. believed me, or understood. Maybe he thought I was making up an excuse for slacking. I never considered myself a slacker, but how would T.J. know? What matters to workers are whether we can see the behaviour — seen, not thought. Slacking isn’t something defined, it’s a behaviour. To me, I was productive. To T.J., and surely everyone else in the room, I wasn’t pulling my weight with only days until the conference.

***

I think this is an excellent example that highlights the illusion of progress. You must be visibly working to show your performance. In this respect, I understand that workers must provide evidence that they are in fact working. Things have to be written, and that’s how our world functions. I felt productive all day despite merely sketching notes on a Google Doc. Or so I thought.

We become enthralled in the illusion of progress once we feel that our behaviour necessarily justifies our progress. Had I written out what I would say, I wouldn’t have the capacity to visualize it. In research, there’s a valuable statement, Measuring is still manipulating. Writing out (i.e., measuring) what I needed to do couldn’t serve the purpose of what I needed to do. Measuring my progress would have manipulated my progress. At times, I need to sit and think. That’s what distinguishes us from robots performing repetitive tasks. We have the capacity to think — to truly think.

My train left for Montreal in the early evening. I would still have a two hour drive back to school with work and projects and a thesis waiting for me. I passed out as soon as I sat in my seat, waking up a few hours later to two others who were at the summit, who told me they’d never seen anyone look so passed out on a train.

Maybe the true measure of productive behaviour is how well you sleep. If T.J. couldn’t see how hard I worked that week, he should have seen how hard I slept.