I'm in a toxic relationship with productivity
And I think it's time for a break-up.
‘I'm addicted to you, don't you know that you're toxic?’ Britney Spears, 2003.
I realised last Wednesday that these immortal words sum up my relationship with productivity.
The epiphany came while Ross G and I were recording a future episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast with speaker and therapist Israa Nasir, discussing her forthcoming book Toxic Productivity.
You can expect the episode to land in your podcast feed in early November, so I won’t rehash the full conversation here.
For the purposes of this newsletter, I’m going to focus on the relationship between productivity and self-worth — a theme Israa explores in her book.
The weekend before the recording, I’d spent the better part of Saturday holed up in my office. I’d intended to get through various tasks during my regular working hours, but had run out of time.
Now, you could argue that this was merely bad planning on my part. And that’s probably at least partly true.
But speaking to Israa last Wednesday made me realize that I had also chosen to do this to myself.
None of the things I worked on that Saturday were truly urgent. There is no such thing as an L&D emergency.
So, why did I feel compelled to work out of hours?
If I’m being really honest, the answer is that I see myself as someone who meets expectations — someone who gets things done.
More than internal pressure from my manager (Ross G), or external pressure from a client, this self-conception was what drove me to work over the weekend. It’s why I’m finishing this newsletter on a Sunday, like an absolute dork.
Of course, this personality trait isn’t entirely negative. What small success I’ve had in my life can, in part, be attributed to the expectations I’ve set for myself.
Society also elevates people who it views as productive, either by conferring them status or by rewarding them materially. So there are strong incentives to be seen as the kind of person who goes the extra mile.
But what I realized last week is that the relentless pursuit of productivity comes at a cost. By choosing (and it is a choice) to work over the weekend, I’m choosing not to recharge, to exercise, or to spend time with friends and family.
And yes, here I am writing this newsletter on a Sunday. I’m by no means cured.
But I’m open to the possibility that the next time I don’t finish the newsletter during the week, I’ll probably survive if there’s no Dispatch the following Monday. And, reader, you will too.
Obviously, this week’s edition has had very little to do with L&D. But if you see any toxic productivity in yourself after reading this, hopefully it encourages you to give yourself a break.
Want to share your thoughts on this week’s Dispatch? Interested in working with our Custom team? Then get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
It’s been three years since the first edition of The Learning and Development Handbook by Michelle Parry-Slater was published. In that time, a global pandemic, rise of AI, and shift to remote working, have transformed how we work.
Last week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Michelle returned to the show to discuss the second edition of her book with Ross G, and what has changed since the first edition was published.
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website. Want to share your thoughts? Get in touch @RossDickieMT, @RossGarnerMT or #MindToolsPodcast
📖 Deep(ish) dive
The ‘deep dive’ is usually one of the most time-consuming parts of writing the Dispatch, so I’m going a little shallower this week in the spirit of being less toxically productive.
To that end, I’m going to borrow a LinkedIn recommendation from our friend Nick Shackleton-Jones, who recently shared a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In the paper, the authors explore the causal contribution of managers to team performance. Through a method based on random assignment of managers to various teams, they found that:
Good managers improve team performance significantly, and have roughly twice the impact of good workers.
Self-promoted managers (those who put themselves forward for the role) typically performed worse than those selected at random, partly due to overconfidence.
Weidmann et al, 2024. ‘How Do You Find a Good Manager?’ National Bureau of Economic Research.
👹 Missing links
🙊 It’s Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word
Sam Altman recently published a short essay, titled ‘The Intelligence Age’. In it, he paints a picture of the near future, where AI will help us solve climate change, understand all of physics, and colonize space. But as researcher David Karpf points out, this is not the AI we have now — what we have now is a variety of chatbots, whose capabilities improve incrementally with each new model. For Karpf, ‘OpenAI’s primary product isn’t technology. It’s stories.’
🤖 AI in organizations: Some tactics
For balance, here’s a more positive view on the current state of AI. Well, kind of. In the latest edition of his newsletter, One Useful Thing, Ethan Mollick explores an apparent contradiction in the way AI tools are being used in organizations. That is, while many people appear to be using AI at work, and research shows that AI confers productivity benefits, leaders and managers aren’t seeing the benefits. So, what’s behind this? To find out, you can either read the newsletter or listen to a podcast version, generated by NotebookLM. Ross G, do you think Ethan is a secret Dispatch reader?
💼 But… HOW Does L&D Learn About the Business?
Attend any L&D conference, and you’re guaranteed to hear someone talking about how L&D needs to be a ‘strategic business partner’. To do this, though, we need to understand what’s going on in the business, and where we can add value. So, where do you start? In this article, Jess Almlie offers advice for building L&D’s business acumen, including ‘going to the gemba’ — the place where the work is done — and observing the challenges people face.
👋 And finally…
My wife and I recently started watching the excellent Nobody Wants This, starring Adam Brody. As someone who went through high school in the early 2000s, this inevitably sent me down an O.C. rabbit hole, and led me straight to this banger.
👍 Thanks!
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