Fable: Productivity Rain Dances - Watch Out - DBR 073

I started out talking about the lies of productivity, but I’m going to change to fables because it's just things we collectively believe without much evidence. Plus, I don't think anybody's intentionally trying to mislead us.

We just move without much actual data.

 

A couple of those fables collided with a post by Cal Newport with the evocative title of “productivity rain dances”, which is a pretty humorous mental picture.

 

Apparently, rain dances are those habits of work that we believe make us productive but actually don’t. We don’t develop evidence, so we are engaging in superstition.

 

So, fables and rain dances probably have some overlap. Let’s explore Cal’s post and investigate some of our own practices to make sure we’re not wasting our time and energy doing things that don’t improve our productivity.

 

What is the discussion?

• Cal’s post about Chris Williamson’s podcast
• It’s not that nothing is useful in productivity, it’s just that the field is not scientifically organized.
• Experiment means think, gather data, analyze situations. It does not mean “I feel like…”.
• Technique is a real thing and it exists – there is a better way to manage your tasks and attention.
• Is a new tool really that helpful? Or is AI another ‘rain dance’
• Cal’s post: https://calnewport.com/productivity-rain-dances/

Examples of rain dances (or Fables)

• Williamson gave a few examples:
• Why do I sit at my desk when I'm not working?
• Why do I thrash around about emails?
• Why do I take phone calls that have no goal?
• My fables are more habits of thought around specific tasks
• “I'd better do it before I forget about it”
• Usually means “… forget about it again”
• Sometimes we do it just because its late
• I feel guilty because I'm not any better at my stuff
• In order to resolve that guilt, we pop up and go do it now
• Overlap with “not finished” syndrome
• Avoiding the knee jerk reaction 
• Our systems don't dictate our priority; they reflect our priority. 
• If we often say, "I better do it before I forget about it", then your system is broken.
• Instead, say to yourself, I'd better capture it before I forget about it.
• We create tasks that implicitly have the Title of "Make progress on X"
• “Thrashing is a rain dance.”
• Rapid task switching, multitasking is a rain dance
• When we measure time, we switch from measuring outputs to measuring inputs
• Faster, in and of itself, is not more efficient.
• Efficiency is a property of a system and only makes sense when the goal is clear.
• Don't maximize inputs to try to maximize outputs.
• Only time saved at the bottleneck step of your process improves your productivity.
• every process has a bottleneck, and the bottleneck governs the overall throughput of the system,
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