Not As Busy As We Think (Maybe) - DBR 086

Episode 86 of the Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast podcast, hosted by Larry Tribble, Ph.D., titled "Not As Busy As We Think (Maybe) - DBR 086" was published on June 28, 2025 and runs 49 minutes.

June 28, 2025 ·49m · Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

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Episode Description

Productivity is hard to measure. I've talked about it before. The measurement problems can lead us to confusion about our productivity. I'll talk about what this looks like in the workplace in a minute.

If we think we're more productive than we are (and there's good reason to believe we do), we won't be motivated to engage in making it better. We'll be complacent, thinking that 'we're doing about as well as everyone else'. As Dave Ramsey says – "you do what you see everyone else doing and you'll be as broke as they are."

I hope you walk away from this episode with clarity that motivates you to engage in further developing your own productivity.

There are huge benefits to constantly improving our productivity – defined as effective use of our attention. As humans, when we can apply our attention we learn and grow. The primary benefit is that you become able to get the results you want in the world, over time.

There is a class of things "poor metacognitive tasks" or "skills". The phrase means that we have a hard time telling how good we are at them – we might be "unskilled and unaware of it". At present, our productivity is a good example of such a task/skill. I'll give evidence of that claim and how it manifests itself in our lives.

We are not nearly as productive as we think we are.

In experiments, output, surprisingly, does not go down when moving from a 5-day to a 4-day work week.
Interpretation: There is significant waste in the system, 20% of hours don't produce output.

Identifying the nature of wasted attention

We may think we are working as hard as they can and their productivity is fine, not needing help.
We may want to work less for the same pay, attributing current inefficiencies to wasted time.
Often, we blame meetings, but work habits (often learned in office settings) also affect non-office workers.

Specific Wastes Under Individual Control

The "Big Three" Generic Wastes:

Interruption
Multitasking
Distraction

Other Specific, Tactical Wastes:

Hunting for information
Making a daily to-do list
Inefficient communication channel handling
Self-interruption / Task switching (i.e., "I'd better do it before I forget")

Facets of a Solution for Personal Productivity

Seamless, easy, lightweight organization of all information
Task Management via 'backlog'
Communication Channel Management
Managing Postponed Tasks

Call to Action:

Focus on what you can control in your personal workflows
Take ownership; decide to eliminate waste. It can be done.
Redistribute saved hours over other areas of work
Or become more valuable by maintaining current hours to significantly increase output and effectiveness; this is not "hustle culture"

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