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Do Smart Phones Hurt Productivity?

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Someone recently argued that they do, and then Derek Johnson responded in the Atlantic that they do not.

It’s an interesting article. I just want to say one thing. The “yes the increase productivity” person notes at a couple points:

I suppose I don’t see how spending more time on email is necessarily unproductive, or even sub-optimally productive. Again, if I’m on the subway listening to Coldplay and staring at the floor, I’m accomplishing nothing of particular use for my company.

I would disagree that staring at the floor, listening to Coldplay (or doing nothing at all) is unproductive. I think that it is the crowding out of this type of time that is the biggest problem.

I wouldn’t say that’s a reason to never check email or Twitter during those in-between-times. But we do take a productivity hit from the lack of in-between thinking time and the mental change of gears it involves.

The Hierarchy of Value

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Also from Linchpin, Godin illustrates the “hierarchy of value.” It’s done visually in a way that won’t replicate well in the same way here, but the levels are:

  1. Lift
  2. Hunt
  3. Grow
  4. Produce
  5. Sell
  6. Connect
  7. Create/invent

He notes:”Lots of people can lift. That’s not paying off anymore. A few people can sell. Almost no one puts in the work to create or invent. Up to you.”

Mediocrity and the Web

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From Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?:

The Internet has raised the bar because it’s so easy for word to spread about great stuff. There’s more junk than ever before, more lousy writing, more pointless products. But this abundance of trash is overwhelmed by the market’s ability to distribute news about the great stuff.

Of course, mediocrity isn’t going to go away. Yesterday’s remarkable is today’s really good and tomorrow’s mediocre.

Mediocre is merely a failed attempt to be really good.

Note: Godin isn’t using “really good” in a positive sense in that last line. His point is: don’t go for really good. Go for remarkable.

And so the problem in being mediocre is not that you failed at being really good. It’s that you were aiming at being really good in the first place, instead of aiming at being remarkable.

(Side note: remarkable doesn’t necessarily mean flawless. It means “worth remarking on.” So doing something remarkable is not necessarily to be confused with a perfectionistic quest.)

The 11 Categories of Churchill's Paperwork

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Often, some of the best ideas come from just hearing how other people do things. So I found it illuminating to read about the categories that Churchill divided his incoming paperwork into in Churchill on Leadership.

Seeing this illustrates how it can be helpful to pre-sort things before tackling them (whether electronic or physical). Here are his categories:

  1. Top of the box (most important or urgent)
  2. Foreign office telegrams
  3. Service telegrams
  4. Periodical returns (regular reports he had requested)
  5. Parliamentary questions
  6. For signature
  7. To see
  8. General Ismay (reports from chief of staff)
  9. Answers other (other people besides Ismay)
  10. Ecclesiastical
  11. Weekend (low priority items to get to on the weekend)

Yes

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“Every great accomplishment of mankind has been preceded by an extended period, often over many years, of concentrated effort.”
– Earl Nightingale