Somewhere in the 925 (the nine-to-five that runs on Silicon Valley time), busyness stopped being a byproduct of work and became the work itself. It got performed, packaged, and shipped. The Slack ping at 11pm, the calendar with no white space, the "so slammed right now." These are not symptoms of productivity. They are the product.
Busyness and productivity are not the same animal. They are often opposed. Productivity is measured by what changed in the world after you were done. Busyness is measured by how visibly occupied you looked while nothing did. One is an outcome; the other is a performance staged for an audience of managers who cannot tell the difference, or who are running the same play one rung up.
“A busy person and a productive person can have identical calendars. Only one of them can tell you what moved.”
— Shailin Dhar
This is the same confusion that rots digital measurement, just wearing a lanyard. In media we mistake volume for worth: a billion impressions must mean something because a billion is a big number. In the office we mistake activity for value: a full calendar must mean something because it is full. Both are counting the raindrops and calling the sum a reservoir.
The tell is always the same. Ask a busy person what they accomplished this week and you get a list of things they did: meetings attended, threads replied to, dashboards refreshed. Ask a productive person and you get a list of things that are now different. Volume versus worth. If your organization rewards the first list, do not be surprised when everyone gets very good at generating it.
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