Thinking? You can only be productive by accident. Here’s why.

Once upon a time, the output and the outcome were one and the same.

No longer.

Taking writing an email. It’s not the outcome, it’s the medium. It’s the spade, not the hole.

What outcome is sought from an email?

Persuasion.

Will your email persuade? Maybe. Will writing the email as fast as you can persuade more?

Probably not — you need to think to persuade.

And unfortunately, better outcomes from thinking are inversely correlated to productivity. You need more thoughts to get a better outcome, not less. You’re more likely to be persuasive if you think more — your most amazing thought could be the tenth… or the hundredth.

Thinking also has no correlation to time.

Amazing thoughts come quickly at times and slowly at others. What’s important is the thought, not how long it took to materialise. Which means thoughts can only be productive by accident.

Productivity is a concept from the wrong millennia.

All knowledge work is thinking. And any time the outcome requires thinking, productivity is the wrong measure. Effectiveness is the right metric.