To Stever’s point I’d just like to point out a book that definitely speaks to some of the current “situation,” it’s by Gregg Easterbrook and called The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. I’m a fan of it, but the title kind of sums it up.

So many things are supposedly helping our lives, but at least in the States there is a high level of stress and general malaise. I’m hoping to crack not just the productivity nut, but the happiness one. That’s the bigger picture and why I changed the caption of this blog to “You want to be happy and productive…”

So the point that all this brings up is whether it matters what productivity studies show. They may incidentally show that we’re darn productive, but they raise the point that we’re also overwhelmed and unprepared. I only hope that in whatever solutions people come up with that they’re not just bandaids that leave room for more work. Instead I hope people will recognize the new options and take a minute to relax.

Presumably, we care because we enjoy life better when we’re being more productive. But if we FEEL more stressed and overworked due to the amount of information we have to sift through, there go the psychic effects from our increased productivity. So now we’re not seeing the dollars and we’re not seeing any emotional benefit. In short, we’re more productive, but we’re not as happy.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to lay on my deathbed and say, “What a fulfilling life! I was 2.5% more productive thanks to my Blackberry, Outlook, Web-enabled services, iPhone, and Twitter.” I want to say, “I was happy, loved great people and was loved in return, and spent my life doing things I felt were meaningful.”

Perhaps to Gina, getting more done than her parents is the purpose of life. In that case, I wish her well. It sounds like she’s succeeding. But to me, and to many of my friends, information is a problem because it FEELS like a problem, regardless of what studies show or don’t show about my so-called productivity.

In addition to the strategies you often provide, I’m reminded in reading through this post of something that Robert Scoble said in response to a question about dealing with information overload. While I don’t know the exact quote his response was to the effect of, “I’m not smarter about how I manage more information, I’m just smarter about my network.”

I really took that to heart, and it’s one of the things that’s helped me. Finding those people and resources that are consistently valuable (like Technotheory for instance :) and sticking to them (or adding/editing/deleting when necessary) helps to manage not only what information you’re getting, but also what “distractions” – which aren’t always bad!

Eliminating technology and going back to chiseling cuneiform into clay tablets isn’t the answer. But then, neither is spending 20% of your day on Twitter.

1. I want to pass along the word that we need to be careful about what productivity data or advice we consider
2. I also want to point out that when we believe in this stuff, there’s a lot of value in spreading the information, especially the empirical stuff (i.e., the studies) that helps others to make decisions

The funny thing is that the empirical stuff probably doesn’t matter that much to people like me since I believe there’s a problem and have already taken actions at solving it. But the studies help to make some people (and many businesses) take the problem seriously. Thus to the extent that I can support the studies (that I believe in) and help spread the word, I want to do so :-).