Posts
Stop Obsessing Over Productivity: Why Your Hustle Culture is Actually Making You Less Efficient
Productivity gurus are selling you snake oil, and I'm bloody tired of watching good people burn themselves out chasing metrics that mean nothing.
After seventeen years of watching businesses crumble under the weight of their own "efficiency" initiatives, I've got some uncomfortable truths to share. Last month alone, I consulted for three companies whose productivity obsessions had created more chaos than a toddler with a paintbrush in a white room.
Related Articles:
The Real Problem With Productivity Culture
Here's what nobody wants to admit: most productivity advice is garbage designed to make you feel inadequate. The whole industry thrives on your insecurity about not doing enough, not being enough, not achieving enough.
I used to be one of those people who colour-coded their calendar and tracked every bloody minute. Had spreadsheets for my spreadsheets. Felt productive as hell whilst my actual results tanked harder than the Australian dollar in 2008.
The breakthrough came when I realised something profound. Productivity isn't about doing more things. It's about doing the right things well.
Simple concept, right? Yet 73% of the executives I work with can't tell me what their three most important outcomes should be this quarter. They're too busy optimising their morning routines and buying expensive planners.
Why Your Morning Routine is Probably Rubbish
Morning routines have become the new status symbol. Everyone's meditating, journaling, exercising, and drinking bulletproof coffee before 6 AM. Meanwhile, their actual work suffers because they're exhausted from their "productive" morning.
I've got clients in Perth who wake up at 4:30 AM to follow some Silicon Valley tech bro's morning routine. These same people are falling asleep in afternoon meetings and making terrible decisions after 2 PM.
Your body has natural rhythms. Work with them, not against them.
Some people are night owls forced into lark schedules by productivity influencers who've never run a real business. Others are morning people trying to be creative at midnight because some podcast told them that's when "real entrepreneurs" work.
The Myth of Multitasking Mastery
Multitasking is mental masturbation. Feels good, accomplishes nothing meaningful.
Your brain can't actually focus on multiple complex tasks simultaneously. What you're really doing is rapidly switching between tasks, and each switch costs you time and cognitive energy. Research shows it can take up to 23 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption.
Yet every job description asks for "excellent multitasking abilities." It's like asking for someone who's excellent at juggling whilst riding a unicycle backwards. Impressive if you can do it, completely unnecessary for getting actual work done.
I worked with a marketing director in Melbourne who prided herself on handling emails while in meetings while planning campaigns. Her team described her as "present but not really there." Her campaigns reflected this scattered attention – technically competent but lacking the insight that comes from deep focus.
Check Out:
The Dangerous Illusion of Inbox Zero
Email management has become a religion for productivity enthusiasts. They worship at the altar of inbox zero like it's some kind of spiritual achievement.
Here's the reality: email is mostly noise. The important stuff will find another way to reach you. The urgent stuff probably isn't as urgent as people think. And the truly critical communication should be happening face-to-face or via phone anyway.
I know successful business owners who check email twice a day. Once in the morning, once in the evening. Their businesses run smoothly because they've trained their teams to handle decisions independently and escalate only what truly needs their attention.
Compare this to the managers who refresh their inbox every three minutes and respond to everything immediately. They feel busy and important whilst their strategic thinking atrophies from constant interruption.
Why Delegation is Still Scary for Control Freaks
Most productivity problems stem from an inability to delegate effectively. Not because people don't know how, but because they don't trust the process or the people.
I see this constantly in Adelaide and Brisbane offices. Senior managers bottlenecking every decision because they believe they're the only ones who can do things "properly." Meanwhile, their teams develop learned helplessness and stop thinking critically about their work.
Effective delegation skills aren't just about assigning tasks. They're about developing people, creating systems, and building organisational capability. This takes time upfront but pays massive dividends later.
The control freaks never get there because they're too busy micromanaging to develop their people properly.
The Productivity Tool Trap
Every month there's a new app promising to revolutionise how you work. Notion, Asana, Monday, Slack, Teams, Todoist. The list grows faster than my daughter's Christmas wish list.
Here's what actually happens: you spend three weeks learning the new tool, migrating your data, setting up integrations, and training your team. By the time you're proficient, another "game-changing" platform has launched, and the productivity influencers are telling you you're missing out.
I've seen companies change project management platforms four times in two years. Each transition costs weeks of productivity while people figure out where everything went and how the new system works.
The most productive people I know use simple tools consistently rather than complex tools sporadically. Paper notebooks still work. Spreadsheets still work. Basic calendars still work.
Technology should serve your workflow, not complicate it.
What Actually Works (From Someone Who's Seen It All)
After years of watching what separates genuinely productive people from productivity theatre performers, here are the patterns that actually matter:
They're ruthlessly selective about commitments. Every yes is a no to something else. They understand opportunity cost viscerally, not just intellectually.
They batch similar activities. Rather than switching between different types of work randomly, they group similar tasks together. All calls on Tuesday morning. All writing on Wednesday. All strategic thinking on Friday.
They protect their energy, not just their time. A tired decision-maker makes expensive mistakes. They prioritise sleep, exercise, and mental health because peak performance requires peak physical and mental condition.
They measure outcomes, not activities. Being busy isn't the same as being effective. They track results that matter to their goals, not vanity metrics that make them feel productive.
Look, I used to think productivity was about squeeze every drop of efficiency out of every moment. That mindset nearly killed my marriage and definitely killed my creativity.
The most productive period of my career came when I stopped trying to optimise everything and started focusing on the few things that actually moved the needle.
Your mileage may vary, but my bet is that you're already productive enough. You just need to redirect that productivity toward what actually matters.
Further Resources:
What productivity myths have you bought into? What's actually working for you? The comment section awaits your thoughts – assuming you're not too busy optimising your commenting workflow to actually engage.