Rethinking Productivity and Burnout in the Knowledge Sector

The knowledge sector once relied on visible activity as a measure of productivity, assuming that being physically present and busy equated to being useful. This approach was disrupted by the front office IT revolution of the late 90s and early 2000s, leading to a surge in workload and a culture of demonstrating visible effort through emails and meetings. This shift towards pseudo productivity, combined with the expanding scope of work made possible by personal computers and communication networks, resulted in knowledge workers feeling increasingly exhausted and nihilistic. The emphasis on visible signs of productivity, such as quick email responses, contributed to the burnout epidemic. The speaker advocates for redefining productivity in a way that focuses on producing quality work without leading to overwhelming exhaustion, addressing both personal and broader techno-social economic factors at play in the knowledge sector.