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Few things bring home the horrors of 'productivity' than working from home with two kids under four. A little while ago, I finally finished the brilliant "Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy" by @melgregg. https://www.dukeupress.edu/counterproductive. 1/10
"Counterproductive" is about productivity: its history and present as the principle way we think about workplace performance, and what that means for the embodied experience of working life for professional and creative workers. 2/10
[Spoiler alert: not a lot good.]
But @melgregg is not solely interest in the history of office productive. Domestic work is a key vector in the genealogy uncovered through reading countless time management and productivity tracts (so that you don't have to). 3/10
Productivity is not just a tool for workplace efficiency, @melgregg shows us. "The productive lifestyle depicted isa. regimen that is always being performed all the team" (p. 85). There's no release, no escape, no way to be anything but more productive. Sound familiar? 4/10
As the book moves from early gurus of the 20th century such as the Gilbreths to the profusion of apps, books and programs of the contemporary software world it increasingly centres on the "post secular practice" of time management. 5/10
One of my favourite sections of the book is the chapter on "The Aesthetics of Activity," where @melgregg writes:
"Productivity pivots on the belief that right actions will liberate an extraordinary class of workers from the concerns of this world" (p. 98). 6/10
"Productivity pivots on the belief that right actions will liberate an extraordinary class of workers from the concerns of this world" (p. 98). 6/10
But of course this liberation is not a collective one, but rather the preserve of the perfected individual, productive and mindful, able to flow within the work. Productivity, wellness and mindfulness relocate responsibility from the institution to to the individual. 7/10
And yes, the distorted echoes of zen koans and techno buddhism suffuse the texts and apps @melgregg analyses. Yes, much of this is hilarious. 8/10
Perhaps all this struck a chord with me because it speaks intently to academia as much as Silicon Valley. I found myself oscillating as I read, looking for productivity hacks while becoming more and more sceptical about the values that I've unthinkingly absorbed. 9/10
At a time when the injunction to continue to be productive collides headlong with the realities of living and working in a pandemic, books like @melgregg's Counterproductive are essential reading. 10/10 fin.
