“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” — Charles Goodhart, 1975.

The modern economy rewards productivity and while at it, increasingly confuses it with efficiency. Efficiency and productivity are two words that are beloved by the neo-modern hustle culture. These words can be spotted in books on self-help and business shelves in book stores, in LinkedIn posts, YouTube morning routine videos and many other places. More often than not, the authors of previously stated forms of content don’t bother explaining what these words mean or how they are different. More often than not, their content is also optimised for garnering engagement and appealing to emotions, thus the reason these words are used in cursory contexts and in hyperbolic statements.

Although these words are often used synonymously, semiotically speaking, they have different meanings. The word ‘efficiency’ refers to a measure of ability to achieve the necessary result or outcome while optimising for minimal use of time, energy or any other resource. Otherwise it could be described as achieving an outcome with a minimal waste of resources. ‘Productivity’ on the other hand refers to how much output can be generated using given input in a set period of time. Or in other words, how much valuable stuff you do in a day. Defining these two words at this stage is important as it allows us to observe how equating these words to one another births a new fallacy.

I would call this a “Efficiency = Productivity Fallacy” which essentially describes a false belief that optimising for efficiency will inevitably increase productivity and gain.

Late stage capitalism, individualism and neo-modernist hustle culture have already tied one’s personal value to the output they produce, establishing a strong fixation on productivity. With various productivity related apps and SaaS aimed at anxious freelancers and employers desperately trying to increase shareholder value in a stagnating economy, a new efficiency and productivity miracle has emerged. Artificial intelligence. A superior tool that can democratise any industry, level the playing field for all players and much more. Most ads for these services or creators talking about self optimisation use both efficiency and productivity as well as many other keywords in generalised, yet hopeful and encouraging statements. What they leave out and most don’t think about is the subjectivity of the measure of productivity as well as conditions, outcomes and applicability of optimising something for efficiency. One can optimise for speed which will in turn increase efficiency. Will that increase in efficiency bring about an increase in productivity? It may, on the condition that a compromise in quality that was the consequence of optimising for speed, is not a problem. Otherwise it may seemingly increase productivity for a while after which, seemingly out of nowhere, productivity will drop dramatically.

With those grand promises in mind a bunch of people are flocking to various productivity and optimisation tools thinking that using those tools will give them an advantage. Unarguably, some will definitely benefit from saving some time here and there or maybe having their things organised better. Yet unfortunately, the majority will simply waste time and money on optimising procrastination, speeding up insignificant activities and trading quality for quantity.

“But why are so many people falling for this fallacy?” you may ask. In my opinion there are two key reasons. First one being limited or misled professional awareness. Another term I just made up to describe the systemic understanding of one’s productive activity. When a person doesn’t understand what matters in their professional life and what doesn’t, they are unable to distinguish which activities need to be improved and which ones don’t. When that is the case for a made-up graphic designer, they may start using AI tools to increase prospect outreach, instead of thinking how they could onboard a few higher paying clients. When that is the case for a made up founder, they may start micromanaging office politics instead of doing whatever profits the company.

The second key reason is fear of falling behind or in other words, stress. People are simply overwhelmed by the rapidly changing environment, lack of stability and a constant threat of being replaced by AI or someone who is willing to do the job cheaper. When stressed out, people don’t think too much, they just follow whatever is served to them as the solution to their problem. When the problem is a fear of falling behind, a promise of getting ahead is the best solution that can never be fulfilled in full. The majority has already learned that hard work that is not exceptional does not yield proportional results. People have learned that quality is no longer an important measure, therefore there is no initiative to provide quality. Quantity with minimal effort does the trick. Or does it?

That is up to the reader to decide. Quantity over quality may have been the dogma for the past 50 years, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way for the next 50 years. If in the framework of your personal and professional ethics, getting away with things is a viable long term strategy, it may as well do the trick. But I’m inclined to think that the tides will shift soon and a high quality, intimate in-depth approach will be in high demand. And if that happens, those that got away with prioritising quantity over quality will have an extremely hard time reestablishing themselves in their markets.