Work and momentum trades

If you've had a high productivity day, it's likely that the rest of the day is also highly productive. This is contrary to how we normally see work

An hour ago, my wife announced that she had to go to the bank and asked if I could take care of our son (our daughter is away at a party). My instinctive reaction was to ask her to go on Monday, “I’ve already not had a good work day today, so want to work more. Can you go on Monday?”.

We negotiated for a bit and decided that it’s best she went to the bank today. And from a work perspective as well, I realised that it was the right decision for me.

When it comes to work, and especially to “stud work”, there is positive serial correlation in productivity. A period of high productivity is more likely to be followed by high productivity.

So, if I’ve had a bad day so far in terms of my productivity, then it is more likely that the rest of the day will also not be productive.

This is contrary to how we think about work, maybe inspired by the industrial ideal of constant productivity. On days when we have been productive, we tend to slack off thinking “I’ve done my work for the day”, and on unproductive days, we slog harder, trying to hit today’s mythical targets.

This is absolutely the wrong way to approach work, on both counts.

When you have had a bad day, it is the best time to take a break since the productivity you sacrifice in your break time is below average, on average. When you have been having a great day, you want to keep continuing so that you milk your period of high productivity and creativity - any break in such a work day can result in “Ganesha happening”.

So after my wife had gone to the bank, I realised that it was good that she went today, because I wasn’t having a great work day anyway, so the quality of the time I sacrificed by taking a break from work wasn’t too high. The other option was for her to go on Monday, when I could be possibly hopefully having a good day, in which case the cost of my time would be far greater!

Forget your internal targets. Defy your instincts. Remember that work is fundamentally a momentum trade.

And this is also the same reason I’m not a fan of the agile methodology and “sprints” - they assume constant productivity which is simply not the case.