Pseudo productivity

Some cultures are great at putting on a productivity show. That is, filling hours and days full of activity that adds no meaningful value to either what the organisation is trying to achieve or the sense of purpose of the person doing it.

Pseudo-productive organisations are great at saying one thing, then doing little to nothing to actually get it done! Here are ten examples of pseudo-productivity:

1. Notification vigilance - Compulsively checking and clearing every ping, badge, and alert across multiple platforms, mistaking responsiveness for action

2. Draft hoarding - Writing lengthy, carefully crafted responses to emails that don't warrant them, then leaving them in drafts to ‘revisit later’

3. Calendar Tetris - Spending more time scheduling, rescheduling, and optimising your calendar than doing the work the meetings are supposed to enable

4. Performative presence - Keeping your Slack/Teams status green or sending messages at conspicuous hours

5. Deck perfection - Endless formatting, animating, and redesigning internal presentations that will be glanced at once, if at all (I see this everywhere!)

6. CC culture participation - Reading every email you're copied on "to stay informed" without ever contributing or acting

7. Performative process compliance - Filling in forms, updating systems, and completing administrative rituals that exist because ‘we've always done it that way’

8. Research spirals - Endless ‘discovery’ phases, competitor analysis, or benchmarking that delays decisions indefinitely

9. Reorganising to-do lists - Migrating tasks between apps, colour-coding priorities, and curating backlogs instead of getting things done!

10. Strategic volunteering - Joining committees, working groups, or cross-functional initiatives primarily to be seen, with minimal actual contribution or value-add

If you scored 5 or higher, you need to rethink how work gets done!