Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are ... See more

What’s needed is more intentional thinking about what we mean by “productivity” in the knowledge sector—seeking ideas that start from the premise that these efforts must be sustainable and engaging for the actual humans doing the work. Slow productivity is one example of this thinking, but it shouldn’t be the only one. My long-term wish is that thi

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But unlike in the industrial sector, in this invisible factory we’d constructed for ourselves we didn’t have reform legislation or unions to identify the most draining aspects of this setup and fight for limits. Knowledge work was free to totalize our existence: colonizing as much of our time, from evenings to weekends to vacations, as we could bea

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