When productivity becomes noise: How to work with less, not more

When we stop measuring productivity by volume and start measuring it by value, everything changes, writes Donna McGeorge.

There’s a strange and exhausting irony playing out in today’s workplaces. At a time when we have more tools than ever designed to make work faster and easier, for example, AI, apps, chatbots, cloud-based everything, people are feeling more overloaded, not less. Diaries are crammed, inboxes are overflowing, and productivity platforms ping us with reminders to be productive. It’s as if we’ve confused activity with effectiveness, and in doing so, productivity itself has become noise.

Many organisations I have worked with are stuck in a pattern of performative busyness, and it’s no longer simply unsustainable; it’s downright counterproductive. We’ve come to accept bloated calendars and shallow work as the price of collaboration, but we’ve forgotten to ask the most important question: are we working on what truly matters? As a result, high-performing people are burning themselves out on low-value tasks while the meaningful, strategic work that moves the dial languishes in the margins of the day.

Your brain has a prime time, and we’re wasting it

The research supports what many of us intuitively feel. Our mental capacity, our ability to make good decisions, focus deeply, and solve problems creatively, doesn’t stay consistent throughout the day. In fact, it peaks in the first few hours after we wake up because our prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive function, is at its sharpest in the morning. That’s when we’re best equipped to tackle high-impact work that requires concentration and critical thought. Yet across most workplaces, what fills that prime-time slot? Meetings, emails, and firefighting. We burn our brain’s best hours on administrivia, and then expect ourselves to conjure insight, innovation, or strategy in the late afternoon when our cognitive reserves are running on empty.

We can’t afford to ignore the biological rhythms that govern human performance. When we align work with our natural capacity by doing deep, focused work in the morning, reactive work in the middle of the day, and collaborative or routine tasks later, we make better use of the resources we already have. That’s not just smarter; it’s more humane.

The meeting habit that’s stealing our thinking time

Then there’s the meeting culture, often the biggest drain on attention, creativity, and available time in any workplace. Meetings have become the default response to almost every workplace uncertainty. Got a decision to make? Meeting. A project update? Meeting. A question that could’ve been a three-line email? Meeting.

Most one-hour meetings can be cut in half, and most half-hour meetings don’t need to happen at all. This isn’t about being ruthless; it’s about being intentional. When we give people back time, we’re not just freeing up their calendar; we’re restoring their ability to think.

The push to “do more with less” is nothing new in corporate life. But what if, instead of trying to squeeze more out of every moment, we focused on freeing up time for what matters most? What if we traded time for energy, and effort for impact? Sometimes, the answer isn’t to speed up, it’s to subtract. Remove friction and noise to reclaim space. When organisations create the conditions for strategic subtraction, e.g., shorter meetings, clearer priorities, less multitasking, they’re not lowering expectations; they’re lifting performance.

Measure the work that matters

Forget getting everyone to wake up at 5am or banning all meetings. The opportunity here is to reset the cultural assumptions that equate busyness with value. HR leaders are uniquely positioned to drive this change. You shape the rituals and rhythms of the workplace, and you can influence the systems that either enable focus or disrupt it. You can champion smarter, biologically aligned working patterns and role-model a culture that values progress over performance theatre.

Start with three small shifts. First, protect the first two hours of the day. Give your teams permission to schedule deep work before meetings begin. Second, normalise 25-minute meetings with clear agendas and tighter boundaries. It might feel strange at first, but the payoff in time, clarity, and decision quality is enormous. Finally, start thinking like a time investor, not a time spender. Where are you getting the best return on your people’s attention and effort, and where are you just ticking boxes?

When we stop measuring productivity by volume and start measuring it by value, everything changes. We stop chasing time and start owning it, and we stop burning energy and start directing it.

It’s time to stop filling calendars and start freeing minds.

Donna McGeorge is a productivity expert and best-selling author.