Reflections on Productivity

Time to time we are all facing the same question: How to be more productive? And another one usually follows: How to be motivated to be productive? Not only us as employees, but the same question bugs employers as well...
However, most of the times, it just feels like we are not ready for the answers. We want to be productive and/or motivated in a way that conforms the current conditions. It is not that hard to see a boss who keeps talking about
productivity, but once he needs to change something (from the office interior to work schedules), he becomes inactive. Same applies for employees as well: We are looking for a positive change, but damn afraid to take action.

In this post (and possibly in the following ones) I would like to share what I am thinking about productivity and motivation, from a software engineer perspective. Some of the things I might say may not be applicable for your case, but
hopefully, you will find something useful.

If you are in software business, you would agree that productivity usually relies on focus, which eventually leads to a Flow State. So how can we remain focused?

With the recent startup boom and having less capital requirements to start/do software business, open offices have become kind of standard or something to be expected for software. Although it has benefits, including less expense, feeling of working together (emphasis on feeling here, it is not actually working together... in a way), not everyone is happy to work in an open office. Some people have misophonia that open office becomes a trap for distraction (How many of us using headphones?) . You may heard of if for the first time, but after thinking for some time, you may realize that you also have it. Noisy keyboards, lousy colleagues (well, you know "heyy we are a family, we are actually not working but bla bla" kind of mottos triggers these), being distracted by seeing sth around and so on... Not that hard to imagine if you have worked in an open office. A small google search about open offices and how people feels about them would give quite insights about the difference of perception between an employee and employer on this part (You can take a look at here for instance.)

So okay, open office is not the best choice for focus, hence for productivity, but how to improve the situation if your company only has a single office and it is open (or shared... or a co-working space)? There is an easy option for this case: Working with flexible schedule, including remote working. Though the option itself is easy, it is usually not very easy to convince your boss or HR... You know, questions like "How can we be sure that he/she is working?" Actually this is quite a funny question. What makes you think that he/she is working 8-hour with full focus in office (to HR, do you actually focus on 8-hr a day in office? ) ? Or even if he/she is seems like working (or just looking at the monitor) for 8-hours, how do you know that he/she actually produce anything? And maybe more important aspect, how do you expect a person to have steel like focus for 8-hours, which is not feasible and possible, biologically? Or (well, this is my favorite and would love to ask HR itself) do you really work 8-hours everyday, fully? Asking these questions may not end well if you dont have an open minded boss (and colleagues) to be honest.

Besides remote working, a flexible schedule would also help for focus. It is quite naive to think and expect everyone to be productive and highly focused only within a certain time period like 8 to 5. Some people (including myself) would be more productive at night (less people to distract you, silence, lack of distruptions etc). Here, by "flexible schedule" I am not talking about "fake flexiblity" like "Oh you can come to office between 7 to 9 am and leave 4 to 6 pm, we are flexible" kind, but real flexibility. Why not letting people to come to office any time? Most of the software companies keep the servers running 24-hr, so other than enlightment of the office, there is no real cost, if you are worried about that part. (And actually, if you give a thought about it, letting your employee to work remotely would externalize your costs to keep the office warm/cool, power consumption etc etc).

For some businesses, it might not be possible to have similar scheme, but for software and IT in general, it is not very hard to think about these to improve the focus and productivity. 8-hr work day is basically a leftover from the industrial revolution era, which is far far behind. So why not thinking for going better?