The Productivity Trap: How Efficiency Leads to Stress

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The more productive we become, the more we work—at least, that is how it seems.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but here we are, grappling with an avalanche of meetings, priorities, messages, responsibilities, and technology.

This week, I spoke with a client about the shared challenges of working in today’s world. As we navigated the complexities of motivating remote teams, adapting to new office policies, managing a reduced workforce, and increasing generalizations of roles and responsibilities, it became clear that our struggle was less about productivity and more about managing expectations.

How Did This Happen?

The advance of greater productivity tools came with the promise of more significant insights, faster response times, more communication, fewer silos, and more opportunities for cross-team collaboration. Yet, I find more executives coming to me asking how they can be more productive, less stressed and anxious, and have greater clarity around decision-making.

Sounds simple enough. Right?

Actually, it's not. It's time to shift our mindset collectively.

Creating more space for deep focus time, reprioritizing your schedule, and, of course, delegating are all essential aspects of prioritization. There are countless tools to help with this, including the Pareto Principle, the Eisenhower Matrix, the 4 D’s of Delegation, Eat the Frog, and more. We have developed tools to help us further stick to our prioritization efforts, block set hours within our calendar, and create daily habits. But is that the problem?

What's the REAL Challenge Here?

As Michael Bungay Stanier would ask, "What's the real challenge here?"

The more I spoke with my client, the more we started to unravel the shift in demands he faced with greater access to productivity tools, increased deliverables to maintain a competitive edge, push for rapid delivery and faster time to market, and increased messaging across communication platforms. It was no longer enough to delegate because every team member faced the same difficulty. While we thought through various scenarios of how he could push back on meetings, priorities, and the increase in messaging, the real question became “how.”

How can we push back when the company expects us to be everything, everywhere, all at once? Pun intended. :)

In Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism , he discusses the need to recognize what is absolutely essential at any given time to further progress on the most critical priority. He also discusses the advent of priorities and how they only became plural in the 1900s.

“The word?priority?came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years.” ― Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

We may say we can do more with less, but have we come to expect that the human brain can be a computer?

Blurring the Lines on Human Behavior

The lines between human genius and computer capabilities have begun to blur. As businesses continue to increase the need for more excellent products, so do the expectations for greater efficiency.

Does efficiency mean doing more, or does it mean doing less but better?

We may need to change our expectations around productivity and how we use the tools designed to give us greater speed, communication, and information at our fingertips. While technology may have evolved, our brains have not. In fact, the more we attempt to multitask, the lower our IQ becomes.

A Stanford Study on multitasking found that those who attempted to multitask had more significant memory loss.

”A switch cost is a loss of accuracy or speed when you shift between tasks. Though some of the costs of multitasking are subtle, they are by no means trivial. Too much multitasking can interfere with both working memory and long-term memory.”

New Thoughts on Innovative Efficiency

As we continue to increase the speed of turnaround, it is time to start looking at the quality of what we produce, in both products and people.

The legacy of our work is not simply how fast we deliver but whether it stands the test of time. Products come and go, but what made Apple famous at its onset was the quality, attention to detail, and thoughtfulness by which it designed its products. Can the same be said today?

While we search for the next AI solution to help us achieve more with faster results, do we recognize that what brings real human genius can’t be replaced? Let productivity, and AI tools do their jobs, but let’s not expect that human brains should operate as such.

In fact, would it be daring to say that we can let humans do what they do best with these tools? Think?

Let me know what your thoughts are about productivity in the modern age. Are we hitting the target?

Jessica Rice is dedicated to helping leaders find and leverage their authentic selves in the workplace, fostering environments where they can thrive and achieve their highest potential.

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About the Author

Jessica Rice is an ICF-certified executive coach dedicated to helping ambitious leaders authentically rise to thought leadership. With a passion for empowering individuals and fostering innovation, Jessica provides insights and strategies for leaders to thrive in their unique journeys.

With over 15 years of experience in design and engineering, Jessica has become an expert in leadership transformation and growth strategies. She has worked with professionals from leading companies such as PayPal, Airbnb, Roku, Uber, Clearway, Kyndryl, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Booz Allen, and major government agencies.

For more content, follow her on LinkedIn and listen to her podcast, The Hello You Show, on YouTube , Spotify , Apple , Amazon , Google and more.

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