what we really need—more so than righteous disdain or brash new policy—is a slower conception of what it even means to be productive in the first place.
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living... See more
There is truly a bottomless pit of advice on how to do work faster, harder, and more efficiently, and all of these ideas have been comforting to me at various times in my career. Now, having made myself sick living like that, I find myself looking for new advice on how to adhere to some other approach, one that does not focus primarily on beating t... See more
The problem with ‘productivity’ is that it is concerned with managing and increasing output: producing widgets, quarterly reports, the next release of the software, yet another research report, and meanwhile, always aspiring to do more with less. Less waste, less idle time on the assembly line, and fewer workers. The end game is to speed up the mac... See more