Part 1: The Illusion of Productivity

Working harder is not always the answer — maybe working smarter isn’t either.

A few weeks ago, I had a session with the People of Product Studio HQ on a topic I called “The Productivity Myth.” It wasn’t one of those motivational lectures about time hacks or hustle. It was just an honest conversation about how we’re all trying to make things work and how sometimes, we don’t even know if we’re doing it right.

The conversation brought up so many important truths that I decided to turn some of the reflections into a short series. This is the first one, and it starts with something I believe a lot of people can relate to:

The Illusion of Productivity

Have you ever had one of those Mondays?

It starts with an early morning stand-up, and the next thing you know, you’re hopping from one meeting to another, dropping quick messages, dousing fires, solving urgent issues — all while trying to remember what your original task for the day was.

You wrap up around 7pm, shut your laptop, and just sit there — tired, stretched, and strangely unsatisfied.

That moment, for me, is a trigger to reflect. I usually ask myself two simple questions:

1. What did you do today?

2. What was the impact?

And often, those answers don’t quite line up.

That’s the illusion of productivity — where effort feels like progress, but when you pause to look back, nothing really moved.

Busyness ≠ Effectiveness

One of the hardest habits to break in a work culture like ours is the belief that a full calendar means you’re doing well. That being constantly available, constantly active, constantly “on” — is a sign of being useful.

But a lot of what we call productivity is just activity — not results.

We mistake effort for effectiveness. We value motion over progress. We celebrate being “busy” more than being impactful.

And it’s easy to see why — motion is visible. Effort is easy to point at. But impact? That takes time to measure. It takes honesty. Sometimes it takes slowing down long enough to notice.

So What Should We Do?

The truth is: I’m still figuring it out. I don’t have a magic framework or a bulletproof system (yet).

But what’s helping me lately is simply learning to pause in the middle of the day, not just at the end to ask better questions.

• What are the 1–2 things that actually need to move forward today?

• If I only accomplish those, would that be enough?

• Is this work I’m doing making noise, or making a difference?

The Takeaway

If you’re also caught in the cycle of working hard but wondering what you’re really moving, you’re not alone.

Here’s what I’m learning to tell myself, and maybe it helps you too:

Don’t just measure your effort.

Measure your impact.

Because activity is easy to see. But results are what really count.

This is part one of a short series around The Productivity Myth. In the next post, I’ll be writing about The Law of Diminishing Returns - why putting in more time doesn’t always lead to more output.

Till then, I’d love to hear from you:

How do you personally define productivity?

And how do you know when you’ve truly been effective?