Burnout in the workplace: Redefining our understanding of 'productivity'
Gateways Business Consultants' Ian Mann reviews 'Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout' - on The Money Show
Burnout, work, woman at computer. Pexels/Resume Genius
Burnout in the workplace is becoming a huge problem with ramifications for both employees and companies.
Our definition of 'productivity' is no longer working for us, posits the new book by American writer and computer scientist Cal Newport.
He's the best-selling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work.
His latest offering is described as 'a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload'.
Ian Mann, MD of Gateways Business Consultants, reviews Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout on The Money Show.
"I think what's happened is that we've evolved a lot. When we started with 'productivity' we started with it on farms... getting crops to market, there was a strong correlation between how much input you had and how much output you got."
"We then moved into the industrial era and we took the same model - how many hours are people working and are they doing enough..."
"Then we moved into the age of creativity and peple who think for a living, and we're using eactly the same measures of productivity."
"If you say the idea of presentism produced productivity on a farm you'd be correct. In in a factory, presentism also is how you figure out if you're going to be productive or not. The question is, can that work with knowledge workers?"
"It IS a massive industry now, that's getting bigger... and we don't have a handle on how to measure productivity for these creatives."
"That's why Cal Newport's ideas are important and quite prescient right now."
"I think the notion of a hierarchy is also one of the relics of the the industrial era. We are going to have to start thinking very differently... and this is where Newport's book adds value."
Ian Mann, MD: Gateways Business Consultants
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Description on Amazon:
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 these really our only choices?
Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history’s most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs.
Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers – from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O’Keefe – Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for cultivating a slower, more humane alternative.
From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.