Posts
Productivity Isn't What You Think It Is: Why 84% of High Performers Are Getting It Wrong
Right, let's get one thing straight from the outset. The productivity industry has become an absolute circus, and I'm sick of watching good business people chase their tails because some productivity guru told them they need seventeen different apps to organise their sock drawer.
After two decades consulting for everyone from mining companies in Perth to tech startups in Melbourne, I've watched this productivity obsession morph into something that's genuinely counterproductive. And yes, I see the irony there.
Here's what really gets my goat: we've confused being busy with being productive. These are not the same thing. Being busy is frantically answering emails while standing in the Bunnings queue. Being productive is making three strategic decisions before breakfast that move your business forward more than a week of "urgent" tasks.
The Melbourne Office Revelation That Changed Everything
About six years ago, I was working with a finance firm in Melbourne's CBD. Gorgeous offices, Herman Miller everything, staff working 12-hour days as standard. The MD was convinced they needed better time management training because deadlines were being missed left and right.
First day of my assessment, I sat in on their morning standup. Forty-three minutes. Forty-three bloody minutes for what should've been a five-minute check-in. Everyone had something important to say, naturally. The project manager gave a PowerPoint presentation about why they needed more PowerPoint presentations.
I counted seventeen different productivity tools across the team. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, about four different calendar systems, and someone's personal Google Sheets that had become "mission critical." They were spending more time managing their productivity systems than actually producing anything.
What Actually Drives Results (Spoiler: It's Not Your To-Do List)
Here's where I'll probably lose half of you, but I don't particularly care because this needs saying: your to-do list is probably making you less productive, not more.
The most productive people I know don't have elaborate task management systems. They have three things: clarity on what matters, the discipline to say no to everything else, and systems so simple they run on autopilot.
Take Sarah from a Brisbane logistics company I worked with last year. Her "productivity system" was a single A4 notebook and ruthless prioritisation. Every morning, she'd write down the one thing that absolutely had to happen that day for the business to move forward. Not three things. One thing.
Some days it was "finalise the Sydney contract." Other days it was "have the difficult conversation with James about his performance." But always one thing that genuinely mattered.
Her team consistently outperformed divisions with fancy project management software and productivity coaches on retainer. Why? Because when everyone knows what the real priority is, everything else falls into place.
The Three Productivity Lies We Need to Stop Believing
Lie #1: Multitasking Makes You More Efficient
Absolute rubbish. Your brain isn't a computer that can run multiple programs simultaneously. It's more like a really fast person frantically switching between tasks, dropping things constantly, and getting increasingly frazzled.
I once watched a marketing director attempt to review campaign performance while on a client call while responding to Slack messages. The campaign review took three times longer than it should have, she missed half the client conversation, and her Slack responses made no sense. Productivity theatre at its finest.
Lie #2: More Tools Equal Better Results
The opposite is usually true. Every additional tool creates friction, requires learning time, and adds potential failure points. I've seen teams spend entire afternoons migrating data between productivity apps instead of, you know, actually working.
Apple built the most valuable company in the world using tools that would make productivity enthusiasts weep. Sometimes a pen and paper beats your elaborate digital setup.
Lie #3: Busy People Are Productive People
This one really winds me up. I know plenty of busy people who achieve precisely nothing of value. They're in meetings about meetings, responding to emails that didn't need responses, and creating elaborate plans for plans.
Meanwhile, the genuinely productive people often look like they're barely working. They've automated or eliminated most of the noise, so they can focus on what actually matters.
The Real Productivity Framework (It's Embarrassingly Simple)
After working with hundreds of teams, the most effective productivity approach I've seen has just four components:
1. Brutal Prioritisation Most people's problem isn't time management—it's priority management. If everything's important, nothing is. Pick your battles. Better to excel at three things than be mediocre at thirty.
2. Systematic Elimination Before optimising how you do things, question whether you need to do them at all. That weekly status meeting? The monthly report nobody reads? The email chain that's been going for six months with no clear outcome? Bin them.
3. Attention Protection Your attention is your most valuable resource, but you're probably treating it like it's unlimited. Time management isn't just about scheduling tasks—it's about protecting your cognitive resources for high-value work.
4. Recovery Rhythms Here's something the productivity gurus won't tell you: sustainable productivity requires downtime. Your brain needs recovery periods, not 14-hour days fuelled by coffee and determination.
Why Most Productivity Training Misses the Mark
The fundamental flaw in most productivity training is that it focuses on individual techniques rather than systemic thinking. Teaching someone to write better to-do lists is like teaching someone to swim faster while they're drowning—you're optimising the wrong variable.
I remember working with a Sydney consulting firm where the partners were convinced their team needed advanced time management training. Expensive facilitators, detailed workbooks, the full production.
Turns out the real problem was that clients were calling team members directly instead of going through proper channels, creating constant interruptions and unclear priorities. No amount of personal productivity training would fix a broken communication system.
We spent two hours redesigning their client contact protocols and saw immediate improvements. Sometimes the best productivity intervention is removing obstacles, not adding techniques.
That said, when people do need skills development, proper stress reduction training and learning to handle difficult behaviours can eliminate significant time drains and mental energy waste.
The Energy Management Revolution
Here's something I wish I'd understood earlier in my career: managing your energy is more important than managing your time. You can't create more hours in the day, but you can dramatically improve how much quality work you get done in those hours.
Different types of work require different types of energy. Strategic thinking needs fresh mental energy—usually first thing in the morning for most people. Administrative tasks can often be done when you're mentally tired but still functional.
I know a CEO in Adelaide who schedules all his important decisions before 10 AM and reserves afternoons for emails and routine calls. His decision quality improved dramatically once he stopped trying to make strategic choices when his brain was already fried from eight hours of meetings.
This isn't exactly rocket science, but you'd be amazed how many intelligent people ignore their natural energy rhythms and wonder why they're ineffective.
Technology: Friend or Foe?
The relationship between technology and productivity is complicated. The right tools can multiply your effectiveness. The wrong tools—or too many tools—create digital quicksand that swallows your day.
I'm not anti-technology. Microsoft Excel probably saved my sanity in the early days of my consulting practice. Having proper systems for client management and project tracking made the difference between sustainable growth and chaotic overwhelm.
But I am anti-technology for technology's sake. That new project management platform isn't going to solve your productivity problems if your team can't agree on basic priorities. The fancy note-taking app won't help if you never review your notes.
Start with clarity about what you're trying to achieve, then find the simplest tools that support those goals. Not the other way around.
The Productivity Paradox in Remote Work
Remote work has created interesting productivity challenges that nobody talks about honestly. On one hand, eliminating commutes and office distractions can dramatically increase focused work time. On the other hand, the boundaries between work and everything else have become completely blurred.
I've noticed two distinct camps emerging. The first group treats remote work like office work but at home—same hours, same meeting culture, same reactive patterns. They're often less productive because they've lost the natural boundaries that offices provide.
The second group has fundamentally rethought how work gets done. They've redesigned their schedules around energy levels rather than arbitrary "business hours." They've become much more intentional about when and how they communicate. They measure output, not input.
Guess which group is thriving?
The Uncomfortable Truth About Work-Life Balance
While we're being honest about productivity myths, let's tackle work-life balance. The whole concept is predicated on the idea that work and life are separate entities that need to be carefully balanced, like weights on a scale.
This framework doesn't match reality for most people. Your career is part of your life, not separate from it. The goal shouldn't be perfect balance—it should be integration that serves your overall wellbeing and effectiveness.
Some weeks, work requires more attention. Some weeks, family or health takes precedence. Rigid balance often creates more stress than it alleviates because you're constantly measuring and adjusting instead of responding appropriately to what's actually happening.
The most satisfied people I know have strong boundaries around what matters to them, but they're flexible about when and how those boundaries get enforced.
What Actually Moves the Needle
After all this criticism of productivity culture, you might wonder what I actually recommend. Fair question.
Focus on outcomes, not activities. At the end of each week, ask yourself: "What meaningful progress did I make toward important goals?" Not "How many tasks did I complete?" or "How many hours did I work?"
Design your environment for success. Willpower is overrated and unreliable. Instead of relying on discipline, create conditions that make good choices easier and bad choices harder.
Batch similar activities. Context switching has a cognitive cost. Grouping similar tasks reduces mental overhead and often reveals efficiencies you wouldn't notice otherwise.
Say no strategically. Every yes is a no to something else. Most productivity problems stem from poor boundary setting, not poor time management.
Measure what matters. Pick 2-3 metrics that actually indicate progress toward your goals. Track those religiously and ignore everything else.
The Real Secret (It's Not What You Think)
Here's the thing about productivity that nobody wants to hear: it's not really about productivity at all. It's about clarity of purpose.
When you're crystal clear about what you're trying to achieve and why it matters, decisions become easier. Priorities become obvious. Time management becomes less fraught because you're not constantly second-guessing yourself.
Most productivity problems are actually clarity problems in disguise. People aren't struggling to manage their time—they're struggling to figure out what deserves their time in the first place.
The most productive people I know aren't necessarily more disciplined or better organised. They're clearer about what they want and more ruthless about eliminating everything that doesn't serve those goals.
It's not sexy advice. It doesn't sell courses or apps or consulting packages. But it works.
Related Articles: