How Productivity Tools Destroy Your Productivity
I like gadgets.
I’ve bought every sort of smartphone right from the Treo through Windows smartphones to my shiny new iPhone 4.
And I like tools too. I must have bought every available to-do manager on the market.
So with all these productivity tech and tool buys you’d have thought I’d become more productive, right?
Well, in the sense that I can now fill my downtime with activities, yes.
If I’m on the train or in a cab I can read my email. By my online CRM I can browse my client and prospect details anytime, anyplace, anywhere. If I’m in the midpoint of nowhere I can still keep in touch with my Twitter buddies.
But the truth is that none of these activities are particularly vital for my business. They’re not unimportant. But they’re not crucial.
In essence, the tools have made me more productive at the mundane. They’ve allowed me to do “admin” when I wouldn’t previously have been doing whatever business.
Or would I?
If I reckon back at what I really used to do when I was sitting on a train, or in a cab it turns out I wasn’t doing nothing.
If I was on a train then usually I’d be reading. Learning useful stuff. Or thinking about a client or project – maybe plotting or taking notes.
And really, this is vital stuff. Really taking the time to reckon about my work and my clients or to increase my knowledge and skills.
Way more vital than answering emails, tweeting or doing admin.
The fact that I’m “always online” with my iPhone has meant that I now spend more time reacting to events (email, tweets, even phone calls) than I do proactively thinking and plotting. My ability to get access to this constant electronic stimulation has squeezed out the silent time where I used to really do some of my best thinking.
And it gets worse.
Being constantly online has conditioned me now to check my email when I’m a bit bored to see if something fascinating has come in.
And usually it has.
Not something vital. Probably nowhere near as vital as the document or the plot or the thought I was supposed to be working on when I got a bit “stuck”. But fascinating.
And if there’s nothing fascinating on email I’m sure there will be on Twitter. Or I could always check my website stats for the 20th time today.
Lord help me, I’ve even just tartan email right now while I was in the midpoint of writing this blog post.
And who knows how terrible I’d be if I had a Blackberry with that dreadful red light that tells you when you get a new email. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to resist checking what had come in.
In truth, we’ve got more productive at the things that aren’t really vital – and less productive at the thoughtful hard work that really is.
We’re obsessed by “real time”. I had to laugh recently when otherwise-sensible social media guru David Meerman-Scott lauded the new development in Tweetdeck that meant you got instant updates rather than every 30 seconds. ‘Cos being 29 seconds behind the era is going to kill ‘ya…
Now here’s the business: I’m not saying all these productivity tools and technology are a terrible business. Even if they were, it’s too late – the sprite’s out of the bottle.
But what we need to do – me especially – is learn to become their master, not their slave.
To use them when it really is productive – not to oust otherwise productive activities because checking email is intellectually simpler and more stimulating.
So next time you find yourself checking email more than a couple of era a day – or thumping out your Blackberry in a cab to check Twitter. Reckon to yourself whether this really is the best use of your time.
So how about you? Have you managed to tame your tools and use them really productively?
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Image by Jeff Kontur
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How Productivity Tools Ruin Your Productivity is a post from: Get More Clients in Less Time: Practical Strategies, Proven Results