Complex Numbers

Productivity

I find that many articles in The New Yorker are long and meandering, taking forever to get to a point, if they ever do.

The Frustration with Productivity Culture  
Why we’re so tired of optimizing our work lives, and what we should do about it.

This, however, is the opposite of long, clocking in at a whole two paragraphs. But I'm still not really sure what the author is trying to say, and I don't think the promise in the headline is ever actually realized. It feels unfinished. I even poked around on the internet to see if there's a longer version somewhere -- maybe it got trapped in limbo by my ad- and script- blockers? But no. If anyone does find one, let me know.

On the surface, the article's about what it says: productivity. Not really my bag, though I have some opinions I'll note below. But that's not why I'm sharing it here: it's not just about "productivity," but about the connotations that any word accretes over time, and how it can mean different things to different people.

Early in the pandemic, I received an e-mail from a reader who embraced my writing about the importance of deep work and the need to minimize distractions, but was thrown by my use of the term “productivity” to describe these efforts: “The productivity language is an impediment for me.”

The plain meaning of "productivity" is just a qualitative measure of how much shit you're getting done. This can be for a job, or, in the case of writers, maybe how many words you can crank out in a period of time. I mean, to me, that's all it is, because I haven't been goaded into constantly increasing my productivity in my professional career. But apparently it's a loaded buzzword now.

The comments were filled with a growing distaste for the many implications and exhortations that had become associated with productivity culture. “The productivity terminology encodes not only getting things done, but doing them at all costs,” one reader wrote.

That's one take on it, I suppose.

Others advocated for alternative terms, such as “alive time,” or “productive creativity”—anything to cleave the relationship between “productivity” the signifier and all that it had come to signify.

And so it occurred to me that this is one way language changes: an old term gets negative connotations, so they come up with a new term to replace it. Eventually that new term turns negative, so they come up with something else entirely.

I think a good example of this is the word "idiot." Originally, "idiot," along with other words like "cretin" and "moron," described, in an attempt at value-neutral scientific classification, those with mental development disability to a particular degree. People being people, we started using the words as insults, so they came up with a new category to subsume the meanings of the former words: "retarded." It just means "slow," as in "slow learner." Naturally, that one got misused, so they started using terms like "special." Now you can't call someone "special" without them thinking you mean "retarded." I don't know what the current polite term is. Doesn't matter, my point remains: words that get negative connotations get replaced.

But another thing occurred to me here. Well, actually, it's been bugging me for some time, but this reminded me of it. It has to do with productivity itself. Employers sometimes demand that productivity continue to increase, probably so profits can increase. But isn't there a point of diminishing returns? Like athletes running faster and faster... but there's some asymptotic limit beyond which the human body just can't run. Demanding further increases in productivity is a little bit like expecting profit growth because the population increases, but at some point, the population just won't be able to grow anymore because there's no way to sustain it. I don't know what the limit actually is (for either), but there has to be one.

That's about all I have to say; I think my commentary is longer than the original article as it is. But I'd welcome other interpretations.