You’re Looking at Productivity in All the Wrong Ways
By Morgan Spurlock, President & Founder of Warrior Poets Entertainment
I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way we were convinced that being “busy” was good for us. Being “Busy as Bee” or someone telling you how they’re “busy as a one armed paper hanger” became what we should aspire to in our work lives.
Now, I don’t know about you, but being as “busy as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest” isn’t how I want to represent what I do for a multitude of reasons, and I have all but eliminated the word “busy” from my personal vocabulary and the work vocabulary of my office. We’re not busy … we’re productive. And yes, there’s a difference.
“Busy” paints a picture of people who are either keeping themselves occupied or who don’t have the time to do other things, guys in Don Draper suits rushing through their offices talking about the future of plastics; a place where someone is “too busy with their work” to really do something or are “too busy to talk to you.”
“Productive” describes an environment rich with goals, personal and professional achievements and wrapped in success, a place where you’re actually creating something vs. just doing something.
I break productivity down into four categories within my goofball non-stop world and each have their own specific purpose with regards to my business, my life and my future (jetpacks included). I’ll explain them as they pertain to my life as a filmmaker, but they apply to all of us workhorses out there.
The first is Personal Productivity, the most important one, as it centers around the time that I make to spend with my family, my friends and doing things that fulfill me as a living person. I know it’s odd to look at the time you spend with your family as being productive. I mean, my son’s not working on the assembly line … at least not yet, but by doing so, I’m mentally making it more important. I’m giving it the same weighted value that I put on being able to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. And like many of us, I often can’t actually be sitting at that table and eating that food because I’m off somewhere else being productive, but the time that I am at home is special. It pays my heart rent and puts money into my soul retirement account.
Personal Productivity keeps me human and reminds me what really matters in this world.
Next is Creative Productivity, these are projects that fulfill me as an artist, as an individual and propel me in the direction I ultimately want to be. (Personal Productivity overlaps here as volunteering and giving back to others often falls under this umbrella also.)
Creative Productivity gives me the freedom to do things that aren’t just about keeping the lights on. They’re places to experiment, where we’re free to try new things, something we should all embrace. And this process can lead to some pretty magical ends. For example, out of the Creatively Productive shows “30 Days” and “Inside Man,” grew Financial Productivity as well as more work opportunities (Work Productivity).
Once you make Creative Productivity a goal, Financial and Work Productivity will grow exponentially.
Financial Productivity is an important one, as these are projects that create consistent revenue, they keep the dog fed, the interwebs working and gas in the tank, but they also free us up to focus more on the first two (Personal & Creative Productivity), and in a perfect world these will overlap with our Creative & Work productivity. For example, the Tri-Star produced film “One Direction: This is Us,” was more than just an epic documentary about 5 talented & handsome dudes, it was a project that allowed us to experiment with previously untested 3D technology, to work with a major Hollywood studio (a rarity for the majority documentaries) and simultaneously opened doors for more large projects (Work Productivity). It also allowed us to do more creative projects (Creative Productivity) during and after it’s completion. Many people think Financial Productivity is the only way to unlock the other three, but the fact is, the more you focus on Personal, Creative & Work Productivity, the more Financial Productivity will sort itself out.
And lastly, Work Productivity, which I view as projects that will lead to or turn into more job opportunities. A great example of this is the branded content space that has exploded around us. When I made the film “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” brands were freaking out and intimidated by the filmmaking process. Since then, companies have become much more willing to take a chance on something that’s way out of the box (Creative Productivity) because it could gain traction (Work Productivity) in ways that the majority of their marketing and advertising efforts are not.
More brand’s are now willing to take a back seat to the value of the programming, which in turn can create not only more creative freedom for storytellers, but the chance for more people to tell those stories in unique places. It’s a Win-Win for everyone, brands get to create unique creative films & series that cut through the clutter, audiences have the chance to see things that may have never existed otherwise and storytellers get to do what they do best. Across the board is an increase in opportunity.
By shrouding all of these areas of my life in the nature of being “productive,” I am making them more valuable. There are tangible results, both personally and professionally, associated with them. I know that just by engaging in them I will be reaping the benefit from each interaction. By looking at my work and my time through this lens, it makes them all more rewarding. And it’s a simple equation: if what I’m doing doesn’t produce positive benefits for me, my family, my friends or my business, then why am I doing it?
So, the next time you tell someone about all the work you’re doing and they say, “well, sounds like you’re keeping busy,” help steer them to the positive side of the force.
“Yes, we’ve been really productive.”
Because, hopefully, you have been.
Morgan’s first film, Super Size Me, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning Best Directing honors. The film went on to win the inaugural Writers Guild of America best documentary screenplay award as well as garner an Academy Award nomination for best feature documentary. Since then he has directed, produced and distributed multiple film and TV projects, including the critically acclaimed FX television series, “30 Days,” and the films Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, Confessions of a Superhero, Czech Dream, Chalk, The Future of Food, What Would Jesus Buy?, the WGA Award-winning and Emmy nominated “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!,” Freakonomics, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Comic-Con: Episode IV — A Fan’s Hope, and Mansome. Morgan is currently working on the series Inside Man for CNN, as well as This Is Us, a 3D documentary following the musical group One Direction which opened Summer of 2013. The film was number 1 at the box office and grossed $67 million worldwide to date.
