Increase your productivity: stop thinking

Posted on | August 22, 2008 |

While doing a bit of blog-to-blog cruising, I came across this very interesting post over at the AppGap — which is a pretty interesting place itself. It describes itself thusly:

The AppGap is a blog and resource on the future of work and how new tools are addressing age-old challenges of organization, collaboration, and creation. But it is also an idea: that there remains a gap between the toolset that exists and what’s needed.

So … AppGap contributor Patti Anklam’s post discusses losses in productivity from a variety of activities occasionally engaged in by workers, which research found amounted to $650 billion in “lowered productivity and hampered innovation.”

Among the activities included as contributing to lowering productivity and hampering innovation (and the one thing in the article that really caught my eye), was thinking.

Yep, that’s right. Evidently, “12% of the average worker’s time is spent thinking or reflecting” and, judging from the context, that is considered to be a bad thing.

I wonder, are you having as much trouble with that one as I am?

For some reason, I’m imaging a Dilbert cartoon with the poor guy sitting in his cubicle in front of his monitor with a big sign on the wall behind it, saying: NO THINKING ALLOWED!

It’s no wonder people are starting to run screaming to self-employment. It also explains, in part, why self-employment is so scary for so many people. There’s the security piece, of course, and the what-kind-of-business-to-start question. But, on a much more fundamental level, being self-employed means having to think independently and take full responsibility for every screwy decision you make.

Of course, you get to take credit for all the great decisions you make, too, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to make some people comfortable with the idea.

Looking at the larger picture for a minute, I do find myself wondering how we as a nation are supposed to remain competitive in a Knowledge-based Economy that is heavily reliant on innovation and creativity and stuff like that when doing things like thinking is considered to be a waste of time/money.

I mean, where do they think that innovation stuff comes from, for pity’s sake???

And, of course, that does not even address the people-as-machines in the workplace issue.

This isn’t the first time I have wondered what would happen if people were actively encouraged (or at least supported) in their efforts at self-employment. Because there is so much about working for somebody else that just sucks, not least of which is how many employers think you are somehow supposed to stop being a human being when you walk through the door of your workplace.

(Pause for musical interlude … )

Enjoy your weekend, folks. And be glad you run your own microbusiness. All human. All the time.

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