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Ep. 296: Jane Austen’s To-Do List (LIVE)

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

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Pseudo Productivity in Knowledge Work

Traditional productivity measures do not align with knowledge work due to the individualized and ambiguous nature of managing time, workload, and collaboration. In the absence of clear production systems, a heuristic called pseudo productivity emerged, focusing on visible activity as a proxy for useful effort. Pseudo productivity involved physical presence in offices and longer working hours to simulate productivity. This approach was a temporary fix until the front office IT revolution introduced network computers, laptops, and smartphones, leading to an overload, exhaustion, and burnout crisis in knowledge work.

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