Quotes About Productivity

For routine tasks, which aren't very interesting and don't demand much creative thinking, rewards can provide a small motivational booster shot without the harmful side effects.

E-mail response time is the single best predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their boss

According to a cluster of recent behavioral science studies, autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being.3

According to the research, the most effective executives deployed humor twice as often as middle-of-the-pack managers.

But "as long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance."2

In the past, work was defined primarily by putting in time, and secondarily on getting results. We need to flip that model

HAVE A FEDEX DAY

tweeters felt active, engaged, and hopeful—generally rose in the morning, plummeted in the afternoon

Policy makers and business leaders take note: money matters. But often the best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table—so that people can focus on the work rather than on the cash.

Instead, they spent considerable time accomplishing almost nothing—until they experienced a surge of activity that always came at "the temporal midpoint" of a project.14

Even "sophisticated economic agents acting in real and highly incentivized settings are influenced by diurnal rhythms in the performance of their professional duties.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience BY MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

sharp-minded analytic capacities peak in the late morning or around noon

Results-only work environment (ROWE): The brainchild of two American consultants, a ROWE is a workplace in which employees don't have schedules. They don't have to be in the office at a certain time or any time. They just have to get their work done.

In the past, work was defined primarily by putting in time, and secondarily on getting results. "We need to flip that model," Ressler told me. "No matter what kind of business you're in, it's time to throw away the tardy slips, time clocks and outdated, industrial-age thinking.

the Zeigarnik effect, our tendency to remember unfinished tasks better than finished ones.2

W]e have three innate psychological needs, competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When those needs are satisfied, we're motivated, productive, and happy. When they're thwarted, our motivation, productivity, and happiness plummet.

Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile have found that external rewards and punishments—both carrots and sticks—can work nicely for algorithmic tasks. But they can be devastating for heuristic ones.

The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. But once we've cleared the table, carrots and sticks can achieve precisely the opposite of their intended aims.

Set your phone alarm to beep every ninety minutes. Each time you hear the alarm, answer these three questions: What are you doing? On a scale of 1 to 10, how mentally alert do you feel right now? On a scale of 1 to 10, how physically energetic do you feel right now?

Alas, at the heart of private legal practice is perhaps the most autonomy-crushing mechanism imaginable: the billable hour.

High performers, its research concludes, work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes. DeskTime never published the data in a peer-reviewed journal, so your mileage may vary. But the evidence is overwhelming that short breaks are effective—and deliver considerable bang for their limited buck. Even "micro-breaks" can be helpful.19

Ample research has shown that people working in self-organized teams are more satisfied than those working in inherited teams.

Down a cup of coffee.