Jul 15, 2022
The Premise of Productivity: What is it really?
Uncovering the Inner Workings of the Very Notion of Human Nature
Productivity is a strange entity existing within human society. If your life is full of responsibilities and work, you’re always going to be striving for efficiency and getting those tasks done, so as to preserve your time. It’s a concept that we aren’t introduced to at a young age, but something we have to explore personally.
On the contrary, we are practically always aware of productivity and basic constituents that make it. In fact, ever since we were kids, we’ve always been rushing to do things. Rushing to try and walk. Rushing to try and speak. Rushing to the park to play. Rushing to our parents for love. We’ve always been moving at a fast pace, but we haven’t ever realized it.
Though the previous example seems like it’s on the threshold of defining productivity, you have to consider our requirements and impairment at the time. Those are the two golden words when it comes to talking discussing productivity: requirements and limitation.
To clarify, let’s craft a hypothetical situation involving two people named Jerry and Gerald, both holding respectable positions in their field.
Jerry is a busy individual, having work from 7AM in the morning to 6PM in the evening. He is a family man and has 2 kids, both quite young, with his wife, who works the evening and early night shift. Additionally, Jerry is also a big sports fan and enjoys watching basketball every night, which comes on at exactly 9 PM.
In contrast, Gerald has a more lenient position, working from 9AM to 5PM. He also doesn’t have a family, but does currently have a girlfriend. Every week, he likes to take her on 3 dinner dates. In addition, Gerald is in pursuit of 2 side hustles: writing a book and blogging on his website. He has set the goal of putting out at least one blog post every 2 days and writing an average of 200 words a day for his book.
Now that we have established the parameters, let’s analyze the standards of their life and look at their respective productivity standards. We’ll also assume a standard bedtime of 11:00 PM for both these individuals.
Jerry, as a doctor, doesn’t have time for relaxation during working hours. The majority of his time from 7AM-6PM involves intense focus and a presence of mind. The majority of his responsibility lies here, for this is his source of income, interest, base of value, and an accountable position. In this portion of the day, he can’t truly be more productive, aside from trying to cut down on occasional small talk or small instances like that.
Gerald, as a software engineer, also needs to maintain focus and persist forward despite problems he might face. With more lenient hours, it’s much easier for him to operate at maximum productivity-this is a concept I will delve deeper into in another article, for it is too vast. He has deadlines to fulfill and meetings to attend to, meaning that some portion of his day is filled with responsibilities that cannot possibly be sped up, aside from minor variations. However, unlike Jerry, Gerald has the opportunity to speed up the rate at which he types code or designs layouts. Though his working hours are fixed, Gerald can improve factors like comfortability, typing speed, self-goals, and more on his own accord. These can all lead to higher productivity and more opportunities, saving time indirectly rather than directly.
Both go home at their respective times, and have different criteria to fulfill. So far, as we have seen, Jerry has had far more limitations than Gerald. Not only are his working hours longer, but there is practically no way to speed it up due to his particular profession. However, as most would point out, the requirements for his profession are more demanding, so he would get an edge there.
Once Jerry gets home at around 6PM, ignoring commuting time, he greets his wife, who is getting ready to leave for the night shift. After conversing with her for a bit, she leaves, and his social responsibilities kick into place. After getting changed and relaxed, he needs to take care of his kids. Having two young children is quite the responsibility and entertaining, teaching, or talking with your children is important. Moreover, when dealing with young kids, you know it’s practically impossible to do it efficiently, for their needs can be substantial. Aside from playing with them, he also needs to prepare an appropriate meal for them and put them to sleep, all before 9PM, when the game starts. On most days, he is able to do this. He usually plays with his kids from 6:30 to 7:30, and then talks to them as he cooks for half an hour. After dinner, which usually takes them almost half an hour, he tucks them in bed and reads them a story. Jerry has developed an instinct and this had become a habit after going on for so long. After the game ends at around 10:30, he gets ready to hop in bed, where he sleeps for 7 hours. Once waking up, the day repeats, and he must once again go to work. His casual life is taken up by these obligations.
In comparison, Gerald has less obligatory responsibility, but his schedule is also quite filled. After getting home at 5PM, he chooses to spend some time with his girlfriend, for the relationship is important to him. After around an hour of hanging out and talking, he sits down ready to do some writing. Being a software engineer, he has considerable practice typing, and so is able to write quickly. He takes an hour to finish both of his daily obligations for writing-the blog post and 200 words for his book. However, by this time, it is merely 7PM. Not having many more obligations or aspirations, he continued talking with his girlfriend and later begins to cook with her to prepare dinner. After they both eat, Gerald chooses to have some personal entertainment time, simply due to the void he must fulfill. Once it is finally 11PM, he just lies down and sleeps, where he gets up at 7:30 AM to make it to work.
At the end of the day, who would you say accomplished more?
Frankly, this is an almost impossible question, for the operational cycle we go through doesn’t determine our productivity. Unlike your wealth or your age, productivity is not a quantifiable value. For example, Jerry has more occupational responsibility, but Gerald has more autonomy for his work. Additionally, while Gerald has aspirations of writing, Jerry simply doesn’t value it, and also is limited in time due to having a family. However, this raises another question:
How come productivity isn’t quantified? Wouldn’t this be much easier for everyone?
Well, truth be told, productivity varies between various individuals. If I were to tell you that annually Jerry and Gerald make the same income, in what way would this change your perspective of their daily productivity? Some might be tempted to say that they are Gerald is now more productive, for he has less obligations in range and works less hours while still reaping the same monetary gain.
This is where our perception on productivity is wrong. Productivity isn’t just making more money or saving time, but involves your perception of sufficiency. When they reminisce about their day, Jerry has little to regret or improve, for he has evolved his work flow and this lifestyle might only adapt over long periods of time. He feels complete and is satisfied with the work he did, moving into tomorrow with a positive attitude.
In contrast, Gerald might go to bed regretting the time he spent on his phone to fill the void. He might have done his occupation obligations and also cultured his social relationship, but the time he spent on something that didn’t fulfill him will bring him regret, and so he moves on mostly positive but slightly regretful and sad.
In turn, this might put him into a positive feedback loop, constantly striving for more, but it leading to productivity that cannot be sustained, resulting in ever more time in the void. For this very reason, many millionaires or billionaires are unfulfilled. Though they’re vastly wealthy, their desire to accomplish even more or be more productive is just an obstruction.
Productivity poses a psychological barrier in some cases, while also being a benefactor of great magnitude in others. Though we have defined productivity to an extent and defined it- not as what you reap, but rather as your satisfaction-it still possesses monumental significance and brings about various entities.
I have spent many a hour on the notion of productivity and efficiency and have garnered quite a lot of knowledge about the space. Moving forward, I shall write more articles describing the individual benefits and detriments of productivity, moving along the domains that it imposes on. If you would like to join the journey, you can do so by following me on this platform. If you would like to express your thoughts, leave a comment and I’ll be sure to respond appropriately with what I know. The notion of productivity is changing us and brings both disorder and organization in our lives; it is up to us to deduce the inner workings of this behemoth of a concept.
