My Thoughts
Productivity Isn't What You Think: How I Learnt to Stop Chasing Hours and Start Chasing Results
Our Favourite Resources:
Right, let's get one thing straight from the get-go - productivity isn't about working 18-hour days or cramming your calendar tighter than a Sydney peak-hour train.
I spent the better part of my early career absolutely convinced that being busy meant being productive. What a mug I was. Sitting in my Melbourne office at 9pm, drowning in emails that could've waited until tomorrow, thinking I was some sort of corporate warrior. The reality? I was just poorly organised and too stubborn to admit it.
After 17 years of consulting with businesses across Australia - from tiny startups in Brisbane to massive corporations in Perth - I've seen every productivity myth you can imagine. And here's the controversial bit: most of what we're told about productivity is complete rubbish.
The 80/20 Rule Isn't Just Business School Fluff
Every business consultant worth their salt bangs on about Pareto's Principle, but here's what they don't tell you - it's not just about tasks. It's about energy, timing, and knowing when to completely ignore the urgent stuff.
I had a client last year, brilliant CEO of a tech company, who was responding to every Slack message within minutes. Every. Single. One. His team thought he was incredibly responsive. Reality check: he was achieving sweet FA because he'd turned himself into a glorified customer service rep.
We implemented what I call "productive neglect."
Controversial opinion number one: Sometimes the best thing you can do for productivity is to deliberately ignore things. Not forever, mind you, but long enough to focus on what actually moves the needle. That CEO? Started checking messages three times a day instead of 300. His output doubled in six weeks.
The 20% of your work that creates 80% of your results isn't always obvious. It's rarely the stuff that's screaming for attention. Which brings me to my next unpopular truth...
Multitasking Is a Lie (And We All Know It)
Here's controversial opinion number two: if you're proud of your multitasking abilities, you're probably terrible at everything you're trying to do simultaneously.
I watched a marketing director in Adelaide try to run a team meeting whilst answering emails and reviewing budget reports. The meeting ran 40 minutes over, two critical decisions got postponed, and she had to re-read every email anyway because she'd missed half the content.
Studies show - and yes, I know you've heard this before, but hear me out - that task-switching can reduce productivity by up to 40%. But here's what the studies don't capture: the mental exhaustion that comes from constantly shifting gears. By 3pm, your brain feels like it's been through a blender.
The solution? Time blocking. Revolutionary, right? Except most people do it wrong.
They block out "admin time" or "creative work." Too vague. I block specific outcomes: "Draft Q3 strategy recommendations for Johnson account." Not "work on Johnson account." See the difference?
The Myth of Morning Productivity
Everyone's obsessed with morning routines. Get up at 5am, meditate, exercise, drink your green smoothie, journal your gratitudes.
Bollocks.
Some people are genuinely more productive in the morning. Others hit their stride at 2pm. A few are night owls who do their best thinking after 8pm. Yet we've all bought into this one-size-fits-all approach to peak performance.
I'm a classic example. For years, I forced myself into early morning strategy sessions because that's what "successful people" do. Wasted countless hours producing subpar work because I was fighting my natural rhythm.
Now? My deep work happens between 2pm and 5pm. Always has. I just needed to stop pretending otherwise.
Figure out when your brain actually works, not when productivity gurus say it should work. Track your energy levels for two weeks. You might be surprised.
The Technology Trap Nobody Talks About
Right, here's where I'm going to sound like someone's cranky uncle, but stick with me.
We've convinced ourselves that the latest productivity app will solve our problems. Notion, Todoist, Asana, Monday.com - I've tried them all. Some are genuinely brilliant. But here's the thing: switching between productivity systems is, ironically, hugely unproductive.
I spent three months in 2019 migrating between different project management tools. Three months! That's a quarter of a year spent organising the way I organise things instead of actually doing things.
Pick something. Anything. Master it completely before you even think about switching. The tool doesn't create productivity - your discipline in using it does.
Speaking of discipline...
The Discipline Myth
"You just need more discipline."
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that in boardrooms across the country, I could retire to the Gold Coast tomorrow.
Discipline is finite. Willpower depletes. Trying to force yourself into productivity through sheer determination is like trying to run a marathon by sprinting the entire way.
Smart productivity isn't about discipline - it's about systems that make the right choices easier than the wrong ones.
Example: I used to rely on willpower to avoid checking social media during work hours. Predictably failed every time. Now? Deleted the apps from my phone during work days. Can't check what's not there. System beats willpower every time.
The Collaboration Productivity Killer
Here's something that'll ruffle feathers: too much collaboration kills productivity.
I know, I know. We're supposed to be collaborative. Teamwork makes the dream work and all that. But when every decision requires input from six people across four departments, nothing gets done efficiently.
Some of the most productive people I know are selective about collaboration. They know which decisions genuinely benefit from multiple perspectives and which ones just need to be made and moved on from.
Google figured this out years ago with their "single-threaded leader" approach for major projects. One person owns the decision. Others provide input. But the buck stops with one brain, not a committee.
The Meeting Productivity Black Hole
Meetings are where productivity goes to die.
The average Australian office worker spends 23 hours per week in meetings. Twenty-three hours! That's more than half the working week spent talking about work instead of doing work.
Here's my radical suggestion: cut your meetings in half. Literally. That hour-long weekly team catch-up? Make it 30 minutes. Watch what happens. Suddenly everyone's more focused, decisions get made faster, and the actual content gets covered more efficiently.
And for the love of all that's productive, if you can't articulate what decision needs to be made or what action will be taken as a result of the meeting, don't have the bloody meeting.
Energy Management Beats Time Management
Time management assumes all hours are created equal. They're not.
An hour of focused work when you're mentally sharp is worth three hours of slogging through tasks when you're running on empty. Yet we persist with this myth that productivity is about squeezing more into each hour.
Energy management is different. It's about matching your most demanding tasks to your highest energy periods and protecting those periods like they're sacred.
I block my highest-energy hours for strategic work and client consultations. Everything else - emails, admin, routine calls - gets relegated to my lower-energy times.
Revolutionary? Hardly. Effective? Absolutely.
The Perfectionism Trap
Here's my final controversial take: perfectionism is productivity's worst enemy.
I see it constantly in Australian workplaces. People spending weeks perfecting a presentation that needed to be "good enough" three weeks ago. Analysis paralysis disguised as thoroughness.
The Japanese have a concept called "ikigai" - your reason for being. But they also have "kaizen" - continuous improvement. Small, incremental changes rather than massive overhauls.
Apply kaizen to productivity. Don't wait until you have the perfect system. Start with something that's 70% right and improve as you go.
That report doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to be done.
The Bottom Line
Productivity isn't about doing more things. It's about doing the right things well.
After nearly two decades of watching smart people make themselves miserable in pursuit of peak productivity, here's what actually works:
Know your natural rhythms and work with them, not against them. Build systems that make good choices easier. Protect your high-energy time like it's liquid gold. Say no to things that don't matter so you can say yes to things that do.
The rest is just noise.
Related Articles: