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Productivity Isn't What You Think It Is: Why Most Advice is Absolute Rubbish
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Productivity gurus are everywhere these days. LinkedIn is crawling with them. Twenty-something life coaches who've never managed a team selling you the "ultimate morning routine" that'll apparently transform your entire existence.
I've been in business for 17 years now, mostly consulting for mid-sized companies across Melbourne and Sydney, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that 84% of productivity advice out there is complete nonsense. The other 16% is recycled common sense wrapped in fancy terminology.
Here's what nobody tells you about productivity: it's not about doing more things. It's about doing the right things while ignoring everything else. Revolutionary concept, I know.
The Problem with Productivity Theatre
Most people confuse being busy with being productive. I see this constantly in my workshops. Managers who attend seven meetings a day and answer 200 emails think they're productive. They're not. They're performing productivity theatre.
Real productivity? It's uncomfortable. It means saying no to good opportunities so you can say yes to great ones. It means disappointing people. It means accepting that you can't do everything.
I learnt this the hard way back in 2018 when I was juggling three major client projects simultaneously. Thought I was being efficient. Nearly had a breakdown instead. Sometimes the best thing you can do is deliberately slow down.
What Actually Works (And Why You Won't Like It)
First opinion that'll ruffle feathers: most productivity apps are procrastination tools dressed up as solutions. I've watched teams spend more time organising their task management systems than actually completing tasks. Asana, Monday, Notion - they all become elaborate ways to avoid doing actual work.
The best productivity system I've ever seen? A notebook and a pen.
Second controversial take: multitasking is a superpower, despite what every productivity expert since 2010 has told you. But here's the catch - you need to be strategic about it. I can write client proposals while listening to conference calls about unrelated projects. But I can't write proposals while having a difficult conversation with my accountant.
Context switching costs are real, but so is strategic task layering. Some brains are wired for it. Mine happens to be one of them.
The Australian Approach to Getting Things Done
We're naturally good at cutting through bullshit. Use this to your advantage.
Forget the elaborate morning routines. Forget the cold showers and meditation apps and green smoothies. Most successful Australians I know have remarkably simple systems:
They identify the three most important things each day. They do those first. Everything else is bonus.
That's it.
No fancy apps. No complex methodologies. No life-changing habits that require 47 steps to implement.
The power of "good enough" is another thing we understand instinctively. Perfectionism kills productivity faster than any distraction. I've seen brilliant people spend three weeks perfecting a presentation that only needed to be adequate. Meanwhile, their competitors launched two new products.
Why Your Current System is Failing
Let me guess - you've tried Getting Things Done, the Pomodoro Technique, time blocking, and probably that thing where you eat a frog first thing in the morning. None of them stuck, right?
Here's why: you're trying to force someone else's system onto your brain. It's like wearing shoes that are the wrong size. Technically they function, but you'll be miserable.
Productivity systems need to match your personality, your work style, and your actual life circumstances. A system that works for a single entrepreneur won't work for a working parent. A system that works for someone with ADHD won't work for someone without it.
The Real Secret (It's Embarrassingly Simple)
Energy management beats time management every single time.
You have roughly four hours of peak mental performance each day. Maybe five if you're lucky. The rest of the time, you're running on fumes.
Figure out when those peak hours are. Protect them fiercely. Use them for your most important work. Everything else gets scheduled around this.
For me, it's 6 AM to 10 AM. I'm unstoppable during those hours. After lunch? I'm basically a well-dressed zombie who can handle administrative tasks and return phone calls, but don't ask me to solve complex problems.
This means I write all my client strategies before 10 AM. I schedule all my difficult conversations before 10 AM. I make all my important decisions before 10 AM.
Revolutionary? Hardly. Effective? Absolutely.
What About All Those Productivity Tools?
Most are solutions looking for problems. But there are exceptions.
Email: Use templates. I have template responses for 80% of the emails I receive. Saves me about six hours per week. Astonishingly, nobody has ever commented that my responses seem templated.
Meetings: Default to 25 minutes instead of 30. 45 instead of 60. Parkinson's Law means the work will expand to fill the time anyway. Might as well make the time shorter.
Phone calls: Stand up during important calls. Walk during routine ones. Your energy changes, which changes how you think and respond.
These aren't earth-shattering innovations. They're minor adjustments that compound over time.
The Productivity Myth That's Destroying Careers
Here's something controversial: the obsession with productivity is making people less productive.
When you're constantly measuring, tracking, and optimising every moment of your day, you're not actually working. You're managing your productivity system. It becomes its own full-time job.
I know executives who spend 30 minutes each morning reviewing their productivity metrics from the previous day. Thirty minutes! That's time that could have been spent actually being productive.
The most productive people I know barely think about productivity. They just get on with things.
What Nobody Tells You About Energy
Productivity isn't just about managing your time and energy during work hours. It's about designing your entire life to support peak performance.
This means saying no to social obligations that drain you. It means choosing where you live based on your commute. It means being ruthlessly honest about which relationships energise you and which ones don't.
I know this sounds harsh, but your energy is finite. Every minute you spend with people who exhaust you is a minute stolen from your best work.
Some relationships are worth the energy cost. Many aren't.
Side note: I used to think networking events were essential for business growth. Spent years attending industry mixers and breakfast seminars. Finally calculated the return on investment. Turns out, referrals from existing clients generate 300% more business than networking events. Now I send handwritten thank-you notes instead of attending breakfast seminars. Better results, less energy expenditure.
The Real Measure of Productivity
It's not how many tasks you complete. It's not how many hours you work. It's not how organised your digital workspace looks.
It's impact.
Are you moving closer to your most important goals? Are you creating value for the people who matter most? Are you building something that will still matter in five years?
Everything else is just busy work.
The most productive year of my career was 2021. I worked fewer hours than ever before. Attended fewer meetings. Responded to fewer emails. But I launched a new service offering that now generates 40% of my revenue.
Focus beats effort every time.
Getting Started (Without Changing Everything)
Pick one thing. Just one.
Maybe it's checking email only three times per day instead of constantly. Maybe it's scheduling your hardest work during your peak energy hours. Maybe it's saying no to one commitment per week that doesn't align with your priorities.
Start small. Build momentum. Add complexity later if you need it.
Most people try to overhaul their entire system at once. It never works. Change one variable, observe the results, then change another.
The path to real productivity isn't through more systems or better apps or optimised morning routines. It's through honest self-awareness about what actually matters and the discipline to ignore everything else.
That's the real power of productivity. It's not about doing more. It's about doing what counts.