?? The productivity junk food epidemic

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Hey ??

Welcome back to ?? On The Clock.

I want to talk about the current epidemic a ton of workplaces are facing. Every day, millions of workers are sitting down in front of their desks, firing up their laptops and gorging on junk — or more specifically — productivity junk food.

?Productivity junk food is tasks with a quick dopamine hit that fill up a calendar with busyness, but don’t add anything meaningful or drive results to the business.?

At the top of the productivity junk food menu are tasks like answering emails or replying to Slack chats. Managers will make their teams type out daily standup messages (that nobody really gives a f*ck about). In the afternoon, we want another productivity junk food fix, so we write out a report (that nobody asked for) or do a short burst of busywork, like creating a Notion doc.?

But what did this person actually achieve at work? Not much.

That’s why productivity junk food is so similar to actual junk food. No matter how much we consume, it just leaves us (and our work results) feeling empty.?

So, who is to blame for this epidemic? ??

The answer is — it’s complicated.

“Busywork” environments are a haven for productivity junk food

Unfortunately, spending our time on productivity junk isn’t new.?

Let’s turn the clock back to 1988.?

Management scholars Blake Ashforth and Yitzhak Fried wrote an article ?that argued organizational behavior is mindless. The authors claimed workers “go on automatic” and follow established rules without ever questioning the effectiveness of what they are actually doing.?

Fast forward a little more to 2016. A Workfront study into busywork found knowledge workers only spend 39% of their day doing their actual jobs. They fill the rest of it with tasks to keep them busy like meetings or emails or writing that very-not-important status reports for a manager (that will probably end up in the trash.)

And now to today. Asana’s Anatomy of Work Global Index found people spend 58% of their day doing “work about work”. We switch between apps, search for information, and chase updates. We are still spending our time doing anything but work.?

Before I go any further, let’s break down exactly what Toggl means when we talk about productivity junk food.

The Productivity Junk Food pyramid, explained

Remember those food pyramids we were shown at school that told us chocolate was bad and vegetables were good, and then we all ignored it until adulthood? ??

That’s the easiest way to visualize productivity junk food ??

The bottom of the triangle is where all of the productivity junk food lives — and there are plenty of options. These tasks fill up your time, like constant email checking and unnecessary meetings, but don’t add anything to achievements. People gravitate towards these tasks because they require less effort, but they can still “check a box” to prove they did… something.

Then, we move up to balanced productivity. Tasks that land here are necessary but might not be the most impactful to a working day. You’ll find things like replying to urgent messages or attending meetings with clear agendas here, but they might not be the best use of time and lead to a mix of productivity and busywork.

Finally, we get to nutritious productivity. This is the productivity equivalent of your fruit and vegetables. Workers snacking on nutritious productivity fill their calendars with deep work sessions, strategic planning, and long-term project work. These tasks are the most impactful work you can do and bring in significant results.?

Now, the reason we don’t reach for the top layer of the triangle all the time is… these tasks take more effort. And if we did 8 hours of nutritious productivity a day — our brains would be fried ??

But what if we didn’t need to fill up our calendars with this junk in the first place?

What if... businesses rewarded workers based on real results, instead of just the hours we clock? ??

Build a culture that encourages healthier productivity

Most companies aren't even aware how much money they're wasting when employees spend their whole day eating productivity junk food.

And despite the recent trend of companies forcing employees back to the office, it doesn’t fix the underlying issue. If anything, it adds to it because workers feel like they have to spend their 8 hours doing something to justify their work day.?

But it’s time to get brutally honest. It’s 2024 — and this moment demands more.?

Companies should be pioneering new, more efficient modes of work, not forcing employees to fill their calendars up with unproductive junk just to prove they did something.

It’s exactly the thinking behind why we created Results and Accountability First (RAFT) at Toggl. We don’t care how long employees work — as long as they bring results to the company.? Just look at this post from Dajana (our Head of People) about how this policy helps her shape a more impactful work week ??

RAFT also helps us defend against overwork with time tracking . It helps our managers understand how long things take, improve planning, and spot inconsistencies in how work is allocated.?

We know a lot of companies aren’t ready to take this step. And a big reason is that the traditional work playbook (working 9-5, 5 days a week) has been around for decades. It’s comfortable. It’s what we know. It’s how we measure if employees are doing… something.

But study after study shows this something isn’t maximizing our time. At the very least, wouldn’t it be great to get a better understanding of what we actually get done at work?

So, whether you are a CEO, manager, freelancer or anything in-between, I have a challenge for you:

• ?? Use a time tracker (here’s a free sign up link to Toggl to get you started ) to track how long you spend on productivity junk tasks during the week, along with the nutritious stuff like project work or in-depth research. Tracking this time precisely will give you real data to help you understand how you spend your work day
• ?? Use this data to measure your weekly tasks against your job role’s larger goals and metrics (obviously this will decide on what your role actually is!)
• ?? Be brutally honest with yourself. Calculate how many hours during your week were you spending on nutritious or balanced tasks — and how many were productivity junk to help fill up your calendar.

The purpose of this challenge isn’t to make you feel bad. Or shame you for sitting in a meeting or spending hours on Slack.?

It’s to get us all to think about how we can make our work days a little more impactful. It’s to give you the courage to ditch the stuff on your calendar that feels productive — but leaves your bigger goals feeling empty.?

If we can all do that, maybe we can (finally) start to focus on?work that truly matters.?

Thanks for reading????On The Clock?— see ya in two weeks ??

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