#2 Productivity Was Never The Problem
Reframing how to live, work and lead ... with space and intention.
Productivity gets a bad rap these days.
I get it. For a long time, I hated the word too.
Because we’ve been led to believe that our productivity is a more important indicator of success than how we feel about what we do.
We’ve been trained to think that productivity means squeezing more into less time.
Optimising every second. Pushing harder. Stretching farther.
It’s the badge of busyness. The religion of hustle.
The illusion of control.
It can be constrictive and claustrophobisizing.
(Yes, I made that word up, but if you’ve ever felt stifled by your workload and responsibilities, you’ll catch my drift).
But what if the problem isn’t productivity itself, but instead, how we define it?
The old productivity model doesn’t fit the people we’ve become.
In the traditional model, productivity is measured by outputs over inputs.
How much can we produce, how fast, with how few resources.
It’s a useful metric for machines.
But we’re not machines.
We’re thinkers. Creators. Leaders. Caregivers.
We’re people with cycles and seasons, distractions and desires, ambitions and limits.
We live and work in a world shaped by uncertainty and constant digital noise.
And yet, we’re still expected to perform like we’re on an assembly line.
No wonder so many of us — from startup founders, to mission-led creatives, to the diligent worker bees that help us make it all happen — feel exhausted, resentful, and out of sync with our own work.
(The data doesn’t lie: burnout is a global problem across roles and industries, with burnout in the workplace affecting as many as 82% of workers. That’s crazy, people!)
There’s a different way to think about productivity.
Through my own personal collapse and rebuild, I discovered something both radical and simple:
Productivity is not about doing more.
It’s about doing what matters, with intention.
What I now call Intentional Productivity isn’t just about being efficient or consistent over time.
It’s also about being discerning.
It’s about creating space.
It’s about working with your values, and your body, not against them.
It’s about getting the right things done, in a way that sustains you, instead of drains you.
And when you practice Intentional Productivity, something shifts.
You start feeling a spaciousness in your days … mentally, emotionally, physically.
You begin to see your work differently. Not as an endless to-do list, but as a living, evolving expression of what matters to you.
You start to lead differently. Not by overextending to fit it all in, but by modelling what sustainability in business actually looks like.
It’s freeing.
But it’s not about achieving balance.
Why balance is bullshit.
You’ve heard of work-life balance.
It sounds ‘nice’. But if you’ve ever tried to hold onto it, you know how brittle it can be.
What do I mean by balance?
Think of a seesaw, like this one from my book, The Cadence Effect.
Balance implies stasis. Perfection. An ideal moment frozen in time.
To maintain that balance we can’t move. And when we do move, something then falls out of balance.
But life doesn’t work that way. Neither does business. We are always moving, and work and life have to move with us.
We can’t achieve the ‘impossible’ for more than a moment, yet we’re always striving for it!
Which is why I think work-life balance is a bullshit term we’ve been conned by.
But wait … there’s a better way.
What we need instead is work-life cadence.
A rhythm that builds momentum, not a frozen state that keeps us stuck.
Creating cadence is the ability to shift gears, adapt your pace, and keep moving through complexity with grace and elasticity.
Cadence isn’t about slowing down. It’s about knowing when to slow down, and when to press ahead, without burning out in the process.
It’s a practice of adaptable movement rooted in meaning.
But what does this mean in practice?
From launch cycles to seasons of deep work….
It’s about building teams and systems that can breathe.
For the tech founder sprinting toward the next milestone, cadence means designing for sustainability, so there’s no crash before they get there.
For the creative entrepreneur caught in feast-or-famine launch cycles, cadence means shifting from panic-mode and reactionary output to intentional, energy-aligned creation.
In both cases…
The rhythm is the strategy.
Remember…
You’re not lazy for needing rest.
You’re not unfocused for craving depth.
You’re not selfish for wanting to reclaim your time.
You’re not unproductive for wanting to work less.
You’re human.
And productivity was never the problem.
But your definition of it might be.
In the next post, I’ll talk about the “Myth of More” and why “enough” is a powerful, often radical, strategy.
Until then, a friendly reminder:
You don’t need to do more.
You need to do what matters … with clarity, consistency, and care.
That’s where creating cadence begins.
Why am I doing this?
Read about my new path on Substack and the first post about what happens after we burn bright.
(Note: I originally planned to publish every two weeks, and I’ll follow that cadence once I get these initial ideas out on the page — they’re champing to be read! The next few posts will be weekly, and then we’ll settle into a fortnightly posting schedule.)
I’d love it if you subscribed, so you get these in the comfort of your inbox whenever they drop. Comments are open if you have thoughts or questions. :)