If you’re working remotely, you might be out of sight, but you’re not out of mind. Managers often assume that people working from home are watching TV, while the workers at home think, “How does anyone know that I’m working?” A recent study from Microsoft confirms this scenario, with 87% of employees saying they’re productive at work but that just 12% of leaders agreeing with full confidence. This disconnect can lead to productivity paranoia.
“The pandemic has created a bit of a monster from the productivity perspective because it gave us such an immense opportunity to break free from the old ways of working,” says Chris Griffiths, founder of the process and systems software company Open Genius and author of The Creative Thinking Handbook. “The mix of remote and in-office work, if used correctly, can be positive, but it actually went the other way because you ended up with paranoia from two perspectives.”
Productivity paranoia happens when people lose sight of what’s important, says Griffiths. Most of us define being productive as getting more things done in less time. The result of improved productivity is that you have more time for yourself and your family and better work/life balance.
“The problem is that’s a complete misconception, and if you start out from that perspective, you’re destined to fail,” says Griffiths. “Productivity is not about getting more done in less time; it’s about getting the right things done in less time. Unless you’re able to identify what are the better things to do are, you’re going to end up in this terrible . . . cycle.”
Technology’s role
With all the technology and new processes, we should be seeing incremental growth in terms of output, but that’s not the case. In fact, Griffiths says technology—especially the project management tools that became critical during the pandemic—actually contributes to the problem.
“Task management software is good at capturing everything, so that you don’t drop the ball,” says Griffiths. “At first, it is great because you’ll never forget anything, and you can just check everything off and collaborate. But over time, multiple boards and multiple tasks drive you into a reactive state of thinking. [The software is] now controlling you.”
In addition, priorities often change over time and task management doesn’t. Instead of examining whether a task is worth doing, you just plow through the list, says Griffiths.
How to improve productivity
The number-one step to take to improve productivity is to create thinking time and breaks in your schedule. “You are not going to be reactive to any outside influences or your task management software,” says Griffiths. “You’re not even going to be reactive to your boss. You’re going to give yourself time to do some real focused daydreaming about issues, challenges, problems, and opportunities that are currently presenting themselves to you.”
Business problems can’t be solved with hyper focus, says Griffiths. “It starts limiting your brain’s ability to connect more dots together,” he explains. “The brain needs the freedom to go out in different sort of directions to find solutions and results.”
Making time for daydreaming will feel awkward at first. When you’re trying to change a behavior and want to make it a habit, you almost have to force the issue for the first few months, says Griffiths. “Once you start to feel more comfortable, you’ll start to see better results,” he says.
Leadership’s role
Griffiths says organizations also need leaders who are open to moving away from pre-pandemic practices. Instead of putting value on clearing all the tasks off the task management list, they should be asking whether employees should be doing the tasks at all.
“The old ways of running an organization—top-down leadership and synchronous communications micromanagement—don’t work anymore,” he says. “In this world, things are happening too fast, and you have to value people for what they’re best at, using their minds and coming up with solutions and better ways forward.”
Good leaders will know that brain breaks are good for two reasons. First, they help people recharge. “When you can break away from that focused productivity, you break away from being that autonomous robot type of thinker,” says Griffiths.
Second, they create what Griffiths calls the “vacant mind busy brain syndrome.” “When you allow your mind to wander and daydream, more of your brain fires up,” he says. “We can see this through using functional MRI scanners. You’re allowing the areas of the brain linked to memory to get involved in problem-solving as well.”
Leaders need to help their employees get past the guilt. “People often think, ‘I’ve just got so many tasks, I haven’t got time to stop and daydream,’” says Griffiths. “If you’re a leader and don’t see your team regularly getting out of the office or putting their legs up on a table to daydream, you need to realize that they’re never going to be effective. Being productive is not doing things in less time; it’s doing the right things in more creative ways to be more efficient.”
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