Productivity Isn't What You Think It Is: Why Most Advice Is Making You Less Efficient

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I'm about to tell you something that'll probably annoy half the productivity gurus on LinkedIn.

After eighteen years of managing teams across three different industries - from construction sites in Geelong to corporate boardrooms in Sydney - I've watched thousands of people chase productivity like it's some mystical unicorn. And honestly? Most of them are doing it completely wrong.

Here's the thing everyone gets backwards: productivity isn't about doing more things. It's about doing fewer things with significantly more impact. Yet we're all obsessed with cramming more into our already overloaded schedules.

The Myth of Busy-ness

Last month I was chatting with a client who proudly showed me her colour-coded calendar. Every single slot was filled. "Look how productive I am!" she beamed. I looked at her schedule and saw the productivity equivalent of a traffic jam in peak hour Melbourne - lots of movement, but nobody's actually getting anywhere.

This is where most productivity advice falls flat on its face.

You know what's genuinely productive? Saying no to 73% of the meetings that land in your inbox. I started tracking this last year after getting fed up with pointless catch-ups. Turns out, most meetings could be handled in a two-minute phone call or a quick Slack message.

The Problem with Productivity Porn

We've all seen them - those Instagram posts showing someone's perfectly organised desk, seventeen different productivity apps, and a morning routine that starts at 4:30am. Pure productivity porn. Looks impressive, but it's about as sustainable as a chocolate teapot.

Here's what I've learned from working with everyone from tradies to C-suite executives: the most productive people I know use maybe three tools maximum. They're not subscribing to the latest productivity newsletter or buying fancy planners that cost more than a decent bottle of wine.

Take my mate Dave, who runs a plumbing business in Perth. His entire productivity system consists of a battered notebook, his phone's reminders app, and what he calls "the two-touch rule" - if something takes less than two minutes, he does it immediately. His business grew 40% last year while his competitors were busy downloading the latest task management apps.

The Australian Approach to Getting Things Done

There's something uniquely Australian about cutting through bullshit to get to what actually matters. Maybe it's our cultural aversion to overcomplicated nonsense, but the best performers I've worked with share a few common traits:

They're ruthlessly realistic about their limitations. None of this "I can do anything if I put my mind to it" garbage. They know their energy levels fluctuate, they know they're not morning people (or afternoon people), and they plan accordingly.

They batch similar tasks together. Time management principles become second nature when you stop jumping between completely different types of work every twenty minutes.

They understand that perfectionism is productivity's evil twin. Better to ship something that's 80% perfect today than something that's 100% perfect next month.

The Energy Management Revolution

Here's where I'm going to contradict myself slightly from earlier in my career. I used to preach time management like it was gospel. Block your calendar, prioritise ruthlessly, time-box everything.

Complete bollocks.

The real game-changer is energy management. Your brain has roughly four hours of peak performance per day - and no, drinking more coffee doesn't magically create more peak hours, it just borrows from tomorrow's energy account.

I learned this the hard way during a particularly brutal project in 2019. I was trying to power through fifteen-hour days, convinced that more hours meant more output. Instead, I burned out spectacularly and made some genuinely terrible decisions that cost my client thousands of dollars.

Now I protect those four golden hours like they're made of actual gold. No meetings, no emails, no "quick questions." Just deep, focused work on whatever's going to move the needle most.

The Productivity Paradox Nobody Talks About

Want to know something that'll mess with your head? The most productive thing you can do is often nothing at all.

I'm serious. Some of my best solutions have come during walks around the block, in the shower, or while mindlessly watching Netflix. Your brain needs downtime to process and connect ideas.

Silicon Valley might worship the hustle, but neuroscience backs up what every exhausted parent already knows: rest isn't laziness, it's strategic.

Tools That Actually Work (And Why Most Don't)

Let me save you some money and sanity. Here are the only productivity tools you actually need:

A decent note-taking app. I use Apple Notes because it syncs across devices and doesn't try to be clever. Notion users, I'm looking at you - stop building elaborate systems and start getting things done.

A simple task manager. Todoist, Things, or even your phone's built-in reminders. The best system is the one you'll actually use consistently.

A calendar that you trust completely. If it's not in the calendar, it doesn't exist.

That's it. Everything else is just productivity theatre.

The problem with most productivity tools is they're designed by people who love optimising systems more than they love getting actual work done. They add friction instead of removing it.

The Communication Productivity Killer

Here's something that'll probably ruffle feathers: workplace communication has become a massive productivity drain, and we're all pretending it's normal.

Slack messages every three minutes. Email chains that go nowhere. Status meetings about status meetings. We've created a culture where being responsive is more valued than being productive.

I instituted "communication quarantine" hours in my business - specific windows when people could expect responses, and complete radio silence outside those times. Productivity shot up 35% within six weeks.

The Uncomfortable Truth About High Performers

After years of working with genuinely high-performing individuals, I've noticed something uncomfortable: they're often not very nice people to work for.

Not because they're deliberately cruel, but because they're absolutely ruthless about protecting their time and energy. They'll cancel meetings if they're not adding value. They'll redirect conversations that are going in circles. They'll say no to opportunities that don't align with their priorities.

The rest of us are too polite, too accommodating, too afraid of seeming difficult. Meanwhile, our productivity suffers because we're trying to please everyone instead of focusing on what actually matters.

Why Most Productivity Advice Is Useless

The productivity industry has a fundamental problem: it treats all work as identical. Whether you're a creative, an analyst, a manager, or a technical specialist, you get the same generic advice.

This is like giving the same training program to a marathon runner and a powerlifter. Sure, some principles overlap, but the specifics matter enormously.

Creative work requires long stretches of uninterrupted time and mental space for ideas to develop. Analytical work needs focused concentration and systematic approaches. Management work involves juggling multiple priorities and making quick decisions with incomplete information.

One size fits nobody.

The Real Secret (It's Boring)

After all this, the real secret to productivity is disappointingly simple: consistency beats intensity every single time.

The person who writes 300 words every day will finish more books than the person who writes 3,000 words once a month. The business owner who reviews their numbers every week will make better decisions than the one who does quarterly deep dives.

Small, consistent actions compound in ways that sporadic bursts of effort never can.

Where to From Here?

Stop reading productivity blogs (yes, including this one after you finish it). Stop downloading new apps. Stop reorganising your filing system for the fifteenth time.

Pick one thing that genuinely matters to your goals. Do it consistently for 30 days. Then pick another thing.

That's it. That's the entire system.

Everything else is just procrastination dressed up as preparation.

The uncomfortable reality is that most of us know exactly what we should be doing to be more productive. We just don't want to do it because it's boring, difficult, or requires us to say no to things we'd prefer to say yes to.

Productivity isn't a life hack. It's a practice. And like any practice worth doing, it requires discipline, consistency, and the occasional moment of brutal honesty about what's actually working versus what makes us feel busy.

Now stop reading about productivity and go be productive.