Slack pings. Unread emails. Multiple deadlines. Distractions derail even the most efficient employees, making it hard for them to focus on the deep work that solves problems and delivers new ideas.
Productivity is reaching headline-grabbing lows in Canada. In 2023, on average, labour productivity of Canadian businesses fell by 1.8 per cent – the third annual decline in a row. While that figure references economic output on a macro scale, it’s worth looking at individual worker productivity as a fraction of the whole.
Before the eyes roll: We are working more than ever. The introduction of Ontario’s Right to Disconnect law is a signal that workers — and their managers — don’t know how to log off.
We have too much on our plates and not enough time in a workday to clear them all. Tasks are often low value, reducing time for worthwhile work that meaningfully contributes to organizations, teams and bottom lines.
Bosses who expend too much energy tracking mouse clicks or enforcing mandatory returns to the office can add to the problem of busy work rather than solving it.
What is the solution? For many, it’s technology — the productive kind.
Lexi Pathak, president and partner of Faulhaber Communications, a public-relations firm in Toronto, has expanded the company since the pandemic, but it has downsized its office space.
“Instead of spending that money on real estate, we’re investing it in software,” says Ms. Pathak, noting that various tech subscriptions make up a significant chunk of the firm’s budget, and the spend on these tools has doubled in the past few years.
“In PR, you’re expected to see everything, know everything, hear everything and be on top of everything for our clients. And there is no way you can do that without tech.”
Ms. Pathak’s team uses tools such as Tracker, a platform that checks influencer engagement rates and brand deals, Semrush for search-engine optimization, and Sprout Social for social-media listening. The team is also exploring project-management tools to centralize tasks: Asana and ClickUp are in the running.
“From a managerial perspective, it will allow us to see the whole workflow in a holistic, simple place.”
Jane Bradshaw, who works in communications and marketing at Canadian bedding startup Silk and Snow, is a ClickUp convert. “It’s really helped with my ability to track my contributions across the entire marketing mix, from operations to product to customer experience. I’m able to get automated emails and notifications to help me meet those deadlines.”
Ms. Bradshaw says she finds that having visibility into everyone’s work helps her stay on task and prioritize.
Another piece of the productivity puzzle is making sure your team is wholeheartedly adopting often-expensive tech and utilizing it to its full potential. The initial onboarding and learning curve is inevitable.
To speed things up, Faulhaber has set up an implementation team.
“They are doing the research, they’re vetting the tools, they’re putting our policies together, and then they’re working with the team to ensure that comfort level and adoption is happening,” says Ms. Pathak. “And then it’s conversation. How are you finding this? What are you doing?”
Chelsey Burnside, partner and creative director at content and branding agency Academy Inc, likes to hold quarterly update sessions to make sure everyone on her team is informed and that adoption is consistent.
Ms. Burnside is a fan of Waldo, a new AI research assistant for strategists. “It’s really good at summarizing mass amounts of data and giving you information that’s relevant to what you’re working on,” she says.
Nearly all modern software has started to layer, or is already layering artificial-intelligence (AI) functionality to feature stacks to do everything from close-cropping an image in seconds to instantly drafting an agenda and transcribing meeting notes. ChatGPT is arguably the most ubiquitous AI tool of them all, after its great technological leap in late 2022.
Ms. Pathak uses it to instantly update her blog posts on the company website. “I’ll throw it in there and ask it to update the facts and figures to be relevant for 2024 and it’s done in seconds,” she says.
The ideal outcome of all this adoption and optimization is to provide workers with more time for “shipping” — putting products and solutions into the world and then iterating and riffing on them.
But tech is only part of the story, according to productivity experts such Cory Firth. Mr. Firth is an executive coach, TEDx speaker, consultant and entrepreneur. His coaching services focus on getting over-worked executives into the optimal productivity zone known as “flow state.”
Mr. Firth defines flow state as “moving beyond our normal waking consciousness, and our attachment to time, to get into an optimal state of focus and heightened awareness.” He compares states of flow to states of sleep. “You have light sleep, REM sleep and deep sleep.”
Flow has four stages: the struggle phase (“you’re struggling into focus, you’ve got a to-do list in your head”), the release phase (“you’re letting things go and a surge of good chemicals go to the brain”), then the true-flow state (“where you’re in that heightened level of awareness and presence, self-consciousness and sense of time is absent; nothing’s in the way, everything feels easy”). The final stage, like after a workout, is recovery.
Even the most productive people can only sustain peak flow state for about 90 minutes, he adds. “When we think of flow state, we often picture creatives or athletes who are optimizing for it, but everyone should be striving to get into flow.”
Setting yourself up for flow requires some discipline, eliminating distractions and resisting the urge to multitask.
“Most clients I work with think they need to be doing 20 or 30 things a day, when it should really only be four,” says Mr. Firth. He also advises his clients pick a day every week to wake up at 5 a.m. and immediately start work. “For most people, flow state happens in the mornings,” he explains.
While Mr. Firth is a fan of productivity platforms such as Notion (“it’s a universal system that we’re all connected to, but it can be personalized”), his ultimate tip is to rely on natural technologies within our own bodies to do our best work.
Most workers are part of larger corporate systems, and 5 a.m. “flow states” or to-do list reductions may be harder to implement. But putting more trust into workers and giving them more autonomy to control their time could go a long way toward improvements.
“Many of the companies I work with have open calendars,” says Mr. Firth, “so I can go into anyone’s calendar and see when they’re free and book them for a meeting, adding to the disruption.” Those small disruptions in their days could impact hours of future productivity.
Mr. Firth’s advice to employers comes down to “understanding who you’re working with and how they like to work.” From there, it’s about building the systems and tools that allow for deep work rather than distract from it.
Not exactly a “productivity hack,” but it’s a good start.