How Productivity Tools Killed My Productivity

I adore gadgets.

I have bought pretty much every sort of smart-phone right from the Treo through Windows smart-phones to my glossy new iPhone Four.

And I love tools too. I must have acquired each available to-do manager on the market.

So with all these productivity tech and tool purchases you’d have thought I’d become ultra productive, right?

Well, in that I can now fill my down time with activities, yes.

If i’m on the train or in a taxi I can read my e-mail. Using my online CRM I can browse my client and prospect details anytime, anywhere, anywhere. If I’m in the middle of nowhere I can still keep in contact with my Twitter mates.

But the reality is that none of these activities are especially crucial for my business. They’re not trivial. But they’re not crucial.

Essentially, the tools have made me more profitable at the mundane. They’ve allowed me to do admin when I wouldn’t previously have been doing anything.

Or would I?

If I look back at what I actually used to do when I was sitting on a train, or in a taxi it turns out I wasn’t doing nothing.

If I was on a train then typically I’d be reading. Learning useful stuff. Or thinking about a client or project perhaps planning or taking notes.

And in actual fact this is crucial stuff. Really taking the time to think about my work and my clients or to enhance my knowledge and abilities.

Way more important than answering mails, tweeting or doing admin.

The indisputable fact that I am always online with my iPhone means that I now spend some more time reacting to events ( email, tweets, even phone calls ) than I do actively thinking and planning. My capability to obtain access to this steady electronic stimulation has squeezed out the quiet time where I used to actually do some of my best thinking.

And it gets worse.

Being consistently online has conditioned me now to check my email when I’m a little bored to work out if something interesting has come in.

And generally it has.

Not something significant. Potentially not nearly as crucial as the document or the plan or the concept I was supposed to be working on when I got a bit stuck. But fascinating.

And if there’s nothing fascinating on e-mail I’m sure there will be on Twitter. Or I could always check my website statistics for the 20 th time today.

Lord help me, I’ve even just checked e-mail now while I was in the middle of writing this blog post.

And who knows how bad I’d be if I had a Blackberry with that horrible red light that tells you when you get a new email. I don’t know I’d ever be strong enough to resist checking what had come in.

In truth, we’ve got more productive at the things that aren’t really important and less productive at the thoughtful difficult work that actually is.

We’re obsessed by real time. I had to giggle lately when otherwise-sensible social media guru David Meerman-Scott lauded the new development in Tweetdeck that meant you got instant updates rather than every 30 seconds. ‘Cos being Twenty-nine seconds behind the times is going to kill ‘ya

Now here’s the thing : I am not saying all these productivity tools and technology are a bad thing. Regardless of whether they were, it’s too late the genie’s out of the bottle.

But what we want to do me particularly is learn to become their master, not their slave.

To utilise them when it actually is productive not to oust otherwise productive activities because checking e-mail is intellectually simpler and more exciting.

So next time you find yourself checking email more than 2 times a day or whipping out your Blackberry in a cab to check Twitter. Think to yourself if this truly is the optimum use of your time.

So how about you? Have you managed to tame your tools and use them really productively?

Ian Brodie is a Marketing Speaker and Coach who helps consultants, coaches and other professionals attract and win more clients. To discover the secrets of how to attract and win more clients your business. Get free access to his Client Breakthrough Report and Video Training and learn how to Get More Clients in Less Time.

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