the summer limbo parade of random, or not so random, content

productivity (5h)

What is productivity, little stories

Productivity is the art of getting things done, in a chosen time frame. In business language It's a measure of economic performance indicating how efficiently inputs (material and labour) are converted into output (product). I would say it’s all Adam Smith's fault, that contended that there were two kinds of labour, productive and unproductive. In his little nice essay The Wealth of Nations, in Book II, Chapter III we find the infamous description:

There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed; there is another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive labour. Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master’s profit. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing . . .

It’s not just Smith's fault, other grey curled men were involved in this shift of mentality that was indeed what brought a lot of wealth and depression.

In 1791, Benjamin Franklin created the earliest to do list, to try to find a way to offer something valuable to society each day. The list opened with the morning question, ‘what good shall be done?’ and in the evening ‘what was accomplished today?’

Benjamin Franklin’s to do list for the day
Teenager Summer bucket list, made by typicalMom it seems
Example of bullet journal, track mood

Franklin was anyway doing the to-do list mainly for himself, he wasn’t trying to sell anything, he wasn’t an influencer, he was just living through the industrial revolution.

Planners were born more than two centuries ago, from planning to a whole industry moneeyyy. It started with almanacs, then spiritual diaries, then school diaries, then any kind of amazing diary and notebook to inspire, to let people follow the word of god while being more productive were born. I must say I found few fascinating stories about christian diaries, or anyway religious diaries. I always expected this kind of diary to be American, and most of the time it is exactly right, but I found out some great cool community in italy at the moment that are being revitalised. They are made of extremely catholic bigoted women that sell their catholic products through the world wide web, this includes school diaries for their kids, and I really would like one. Will add info if I find them again (the algorithm will bring them back to me).

One interesting story is the one of the Wanamaker diary, invented by John Wanamaker that paired a daily planner with his own store catalogue, making one of the first examples of diary underwritten by ads.

This diary brought back some memories. The ‘smemoranda’ is one of the most famous and still used school diaries in Italy. Inspired by Vitt diaries from the ‘70, it hosted comics and stories from Benito Jacovitti. Smemoranda was the first agenda to also include articles, opinions, and essays on various current topics with an emphasis on values such as environmentalism, solidarity and pacifism, but some ads as well. If you have the smemo you are cool. Anyway the smemo is still a symbol of the high school years. Last year, former Senator Pillon had considered the 2023/2024 edition of the diary dangerous because of the importance it attached to gender issues. I am not gonna say anything because I don’t respect people that use bow ties (Pillon).

Some schools started prohibiting the usage of branded diaries (not because of Pillon), some institutes started making their own personal diaries for their students, the most fashionable and memable? The one from catholic schools. Is branding school’s diary something common in other countries as well?

Wanamaker diary
a PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), PalmPilot, launched in 1996, carried digital calendars, address books, and note taking tools
Smemo 2023-2024 edition

Returning back to the history of productivity tools. Guru’s of productivity were born later. Tom Peters, Michael Porter, Bill Smith, all wrote and analysed best run companies, studied leadership and production management. I don’t really care about industrial productivity, even if I know it plays a role in how we I'm curious about personal tools and the dynamics of toxic productivity. Where do these pressures come from, and how can we navigate the fast pace of the 21st century?

Productivity got a bust after personal computers started existing, people started using computers because of new software about productivity, top project management tools began redefining organisation and collaboration. With task allocation, deadline reminders, and collaboration features, these tools became the backbone of team coordination and production. Earliest office suite for personal computers includes MicroPro International's StarBurst in the early 1980s, Microsoft Office dominates the market from the 1990’s

Personal Information Managers (PIMs) have been around for some time, with programs like Lotus Agenda and Microsoft Outlook (launched in 1997) that introduced the concept of organising emails, calendars, tasks, and contacts in one single digital environment.

With the development of smartphones a new generation of productivity apps emerged, like Evernote (2004), Remember the milk (2004), Taskwarrior (open source, 2008), Trello (2011), Any.do (2011), Todoist (2012), Habitica (the game-to-do-list) (2013), Slack (2013), Notion (2016), Google Tasks (2018), Priority Matrix (following the eisenhower method) (2020)

Funnily enough I tried almost all of them all.

The future seems bright for extreme productivity, so with an emphasis on integration and automation Services like Zapier and IFTTT (If This Then That) allow users to connect different apps and automate workflows and productivity. AI got us as well, AI driven tools like Notion, Roam Research and Microsoft 365 copilot feature natural language processive, prediction of text, and personalised task management, pushing productivity even deeper in our brain.

Is the usage of virtual assistants, predictive analytics, and automation tools beneficial for us? Mundane tasks are becoming obsolete quite easily, supposedly freeing humans to focus on innovation and strategy. But are we really sure about that?

I always had an obsession with tools for productivity, I never found the perfect one for me, that was free and ads free, now it’s practically impossible to find one that is minimal, free and easy to use. It’s easier to learn how to make your own, so here I am.