Bending the Curves of Productivity

In other words, instead of fighting the direction the world is moving — drinking more coffee, cutting off our access to technology, and trying to force ourselves to focus — wouldn’t it be easier to flow with it? Or possibly even use it to our advantage?

So what is required to make this new approach a reality? It requires us to get much, much better at packaging our work mid-stream.

If ideas are the inventory of knowledge work, then reducing our batch sizes requires changing not how we manage tasks and projects, but how we manage the information content of those projects.

What we need to do is change the shape and size of the value curve to match the pace at which modern work moves. Instead of delivering value in a big package that spans huge amounts of time and money, we deliver it in smaller chunks at more frequent intervals:

Note-taking apps, simply put, are our best option for “bending” productivity to the ebb and flow of our days, and for managing the work-in-process inventory of ideas that represents our main asset as knowledge workers.

Here’s a radical idea: what if this new workplace environment we find ourselves in is actually a good thing? What if we saw the constant stimulation not as interruptions and distractions, but as opportunities for rich feedback and connection? What if we used online networks as platforms for learning and collaboration, not as procrastination devices... See more

If we see our work as creating these intermediate packets, we can find ways to create value in any span of time, no matter how short. Productivity becomes a game of matching each available block of time with a corresponding packet of value.

Each person possesses a unique lifestream of information from numerous sources, and success increasingly depends on curating, tweaking, redirecting, and capturing value from this stream to use in our work.