There's some potentially interesting data here but I found it disappointing that this article was mainly showing averages. I'd love to learn what distinguishes the most productive folks from the average. Are they more consistent? Do they check email a lot less? Do they tend to work more in the morning?
To this point, I'd like to know what distinguishes the least productive from the average. Or more plainly stated: what are the traps everyone should avoid to maintain reasonable levels of productivity.
How could you differentiate between people who use their computers least as being the most productive (they get everything done in the shortest time and then do something else), or the least productive (they do the least work)? Or the people who use their computers most as the most productive (they get the most done), or least productive (they spend more time on work activities but still fail to complete things).
Only measuring how much time you spend on something isn't enough to measure your productivity.
A good report would be what websites/apps are common among the least productive and what websites/apps are common among the most productive.
BTW, I love RescueTime! It has helped me wean myself off of my news addiction, especially during business hours. I wish the trending view would show longer time spans though! Can't they build cubes for different time spans to make the reports go fast over longer timescales?
The least productive people I knew simply did not worked much. They did spend time in work, sometimes a lot of time, but ultimately most of that time was slacking around and then pretending that 10 minutes task actually was difficult and took whole day.
They might have been burned out. At the stage before your body prevents you from getting physically to work your work output takes a very serious nose dive.
How do you know? Sometimes it can be difficult for others to tell if somebody is burned out or not besides that their productivity, motivation etc tank.
Burned out people have history of producing a lot in the past or working on high pressure projects. Also, they don't keep doing nothing long term, they tend to seek solution.
Lastly, not sure how them being burned out would changed all that much. The impact on team would be all the same.
Regarding your second point, sure, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome much, but most people have more sympathy for someone who is burnt out than for someone who is just lazy. Also, a burnt out person can be helped to recover while a lazy person probably should just be fired.
I agree with helping people, especially those burned out because your own management pressured on them. And it is also true that a lot of demotivation happen when management is bad and those people start working good once they are in better environment or more suitable position (it positions are not made equal and one can excel in one and fail in different one).
But sometimes, laziness is the thing.
My original point was meant to be that as long as you think about out productivity, have somewhere back in your mind that something should be produced today, you are fine and not in that worst performer category. Because you are trying and that will keep you away from such fall. It was meant to be reassuring in some way.
Absolutely, I didn’t mean to imply that they weren’t lazy in this particular case, I just wanted to make sure because I often hear people dismiss actual problems (eg recently I heard someone say that most people with anxiety are making it up...). Obviously that isn’t the case here, but I sometimes feel compelled to defend people who might suffer from burnout/anxiety/depression/etc, so I wanted to be sure.
