Productive

Something that has come into stark relief in the last six weeks, is how we define, describe, or prove productivity.

In my mind, it is hard to separate ‘productivity’ from ‘producing something tangible’.  The word feels related to industrial production, like manufacturing work.  That’s where productivity is clearly measurable.

Being “productive” is “getting stuff done”.  And that ‘stuff’ needs to be tangible, provable.

But these days, perhaps we are realising that being productive can also be related to doing things that are just “consequential” rather than tangible.  It should be plausible to be productive just “being” rather than always doing.