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Slow Productivity – Cal Newport

by Book ReviewsWorkplace Norms, Expectations and Responsibilities

In his book Slow Productivity, Cal Newport makes a convincing argument that we need to slow down, rather than speed up if we are to become more usefully productive. 

He does a deep-dive into how we got to the place of what he refers to as ‘pseudo-productivity – The use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort‘ in a knowledge-work context and how this is leading to burnout. 

This is especially relevant in the context of remote and hybrid workers, where productivity signalling is needed to showcase levels of busyness and relevance within a job role. 

The premise of this book is for knowledge workers to be less focused on producing lower-value knowledge widgets – juggling emails, messages, etc to feel more ‘productive’ and get more items ticked off the To-Do List. He suggests we spend more time engaging in deeper work that produces greater value knowledge products and output over an extended period. 

This logic is counter-intuitive for today’s fast-paced DigiTech-driven transaction-based business culture; where employees are mostly just a number and an individual career is more about transferable professional skills than staying with one company for extended periods. 

Maybe it’s time to shift our business culture to a more sustainable, more value-driven one of Slow Productivity.

Cal’s logic is sound and this way of operating within a business environment (whether employed or self-employed) along with the skills we should develop from his previous book Deep Work will give those who embrace these philosophies a strategic and tactical advantage over the prevailing shallower focussed skillset of the majority of knowledge workers.

About Cal Newport:

Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University, USA. He has published a number of non-fiction books and conducts a lot of research on the interaction of humans and technology. 

You can find out more about him on his website.

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Busyness and overwork in the Workplace

Busyness in the workplace and the stealing of leisure time

by Workplace Norms, Expectations and Responsibilities

A century ago, social status was accompanied by ‘an abundance of leisure’. The wealthy and upwardly mobile demonstrated their wealth by how little they did, and how much others did for them.

We’ve now flipped those expectations completely so that social status now comes from a narrative around ‘busyness without leisure’. To the point, that busyness has become a status symbol. When someone asks how work is going, the first response we often get is ‘Things are really busy at the moment, there is so much going on’.

We also seem to get some kind of internal reward from others seeing as hardworking and the ‘look how busy and important I am’ mental narratives that come with additional responsibilities in an organisation.

Longer hours are seen as a core characteristic of the socially privileged and those who have ‘made it’.

For those of us who do not produce ‘things’, but rather ‘ideas’, busyness has become a signal of our knowledge value.

The logic in this is that the busier we make ourselves out to be, the scarcer our knowledge resource must be, and so is, therefore, of greater value than another who isn’t as busy.

But, the longer-term effect of this working longer hours, to increase the perceived value of our knowledge, is that we spend more, and more time at work or ‘doing’ work.

Because these knowledge workers conduct the majority of their work with the tools of technology, they end up being constantly connected to these tools, often worried about not being available when needed or missing out on that ‘one big opportunity’.

Research conducted in this area clearly demonstrates that this type of Always On, Always Available behaviour is stressful and exhausting. It can also reduce both quality and quantity of sleep, thereby not allowing enough cognitive or physical recovery time overnight. This means next-day productivity levels are low and distraction levels are high.

This can result in more work pressure over time. It can also lead to longer-term stress, anxiety and perceived burnout. 

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Productivity signalling while remote working

by Workplace Norms, Expectations and Responsibilities

Research prior to Lockdown 1 around remote working, suggested that there was a productivity bias related to those not physically present in the office.

The results of many studies showed that those who were either actively or passively present within the geographical office were more likely to be promoted, have higher salaries and were given more learning and career opportunities than those who spent more time away from the office. 

Those not (always) in the office were perceived as less dependable, potentially slacking off and less productive than those in the office. 

To counterbalance this bias, those who worked either in a hub office, while away from the office or at home, spent a lot of time and energy ‘signalling’ their working hours and productivity to their managers and others in their teams. 

This signalling behaviour came in the form of:

  • Attending every video conference meeting they were invited to
  • Taking on last-minute projects to showcase their willingness to participate in work
  • Sending emails throughout the course of the day
  • Working longer hours than the traditional in-office worker

This ‘productivity signalling’ is now happening on a much wider scale and has inadvertently changed the working hour norms – extending them into what was previously commuting time. 

Traditionally, commuting time was spent catching up on emails,  reading, listening to music, thinking about the tasks needing to be worked on and planning ahead. All relatively lower-level cognitive tasks. 

Now that time is spent doing higher-level cognitive tasks, which use higher levels of energy and are more likely to lead to longer-term cognitive exhaustion. 

Additionally, commuting time traditionally served as a distinct intersection between one life-realm and another. 

It was a signal to the subconscious brain that ‘we’re now shifting from this part of life into this other part’. We got to mentally shift gears. 

When we were working from home, there was: 

  • Regular and constant cognitive shifting between our various life realms
  • Limited transition time to help us catch up, plan and decompress from a day in the office or a stressful morning getting everyone ready for the day ahead. 

Longer working hours result in our brains still whirling by the time we go to bed – reducing both the depth and duration of our sleep. 

This results in lower levels of productivity and being more prone to distraction from notifications, emails, messages and self-distraction activities. 

We substitute for the lower productivity levels by working longer hours to get the same level of work done, leading us into a downward spiral of cognitive, physical and emotional tiredness. 

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