The nature of productivity

Qualitative vs quantitative measures

I don’t know a single creative who doesn’t stress out about being productive. I blame capitalism. We’ve all been told that unless we’re producing producing producing 24/7 then we are failing. This is because capitalism translates labor into products for sale, but art is not made on an assembly line. We’ve misconstrued output with progress made, when what art requires most is letting go and allowing the creative process to take whatever disorganized, chaotic path it requires. With creativity, letting go of progress is what actually leads to making progress, not imitating a cog in a machine.

a project room from my product design days

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Back in my product design days, I had one goal: getting a product onto the shelf. No matter how much work it took, as long as we ended up with a solution, we had met our goal. Often, we went through hundreds of ideas. We covered the walls with countless concept sketches. We brainstormed from every angle possible. We studied consumers for any opportunity to innovate. If we could meet the consumer’s needs in a new or better way, we could displace another product on the shelf more easily. It didn’t matter if we threw away hundreds of ideas in pursuit of a solution. Those ideas didn’t make our clients money. Only an idea that made it to the shelf made money. A quantity of solutions was useless. One good idea was GOLD.

Sometimes, the designers on my team really struggled with not getting credit for the many ideas they came up with during the ideation phase. They got hung up on the quantity of work, wanting validation for the volume of paper on the wall. They were valuing the wrong measure. Productivity is not measured quantitatively. Productivity is a qualitative measure. Even when you have a quota to reach, that quota must be reach sufficiently. A measure of quality must be achieved, or the effort doesn’t count.

Applied to writing, a qualitative measure of productivity says that daydreaming for three days to figure out your magic system is more productive than writing 10,000 words with the wrong magic system. Scribbling notes in your notebook for a week is not time wasted. It is perhaps more productive than forging ahead when you don’t have enough direction yet. Yes, some of art is exploratory, and there are times when you have to write your way to answers, but word count is not the only measure of productivity. The volume you produce does not guarantee success, no matter what kind of art you pursue. Quality results are the true measure of progress, not how many hours or works or drafts or studies you invest. Practicing emotional detachment from your word count leads to freedom, connection, inspiration…and joy.