Where do we draw the line in a culture obsessed with productivity—doing, creating, and accomplishing more? The modern workplace is surprisingly full of outdated assumptions, half-truths, and other clichés that look good on paper but don’t feel as good in reality; how do we separate fact from fiction?
We’re debunking nine of the most frequent productivity myths and what you should know instead so you can actually enjoy better, more productive workdays.
Myth #1: Successful people are morning people
“The early bird gets the worm,” they say. So much productivity advice suggests you must wake up as early as 4:00 or 5:00 am and kick off your day with a bustling morning routine to succeed. This advice pushes a one-size-fits-all approach that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Reality: Knowing your energy rhythms is more important for productivity
Instead of working tirelessly to adopt a schedule that doesn’t fit your needs, body, or lifestyle, there’s value in understanding yourself well enough to know your natural energy cycles (and use them to your advantage). It’s not that having a solid morning routine won’t benefit you (there’s power in starting the day on the right foot), but rather that you can’t force yourself to adopt a productivity routine or schedule that doesn’t work best for your body or mind.
We all operate under a unique biological clock based on our circadian rhythm, called a chronotype. Depending on who you ask, there are three or four chronotypes (a fourth emerged in recent years). Ultimately, our chronotypes affect our daily life, including our appetites, sleep patterns, and, you guessed it, ideal productivity window.
Understand how your body operates and build routines that serve you well—that’s where you’ll find true success. Some people feel most creative first thing in the morning, while others might not get a creative rush until after dinnertime. For those who experience an afternoon slump, making decisions after lunch can feel more difficult. Be mindful of and in tune with your natural habits to design your days around what works best.
Myth #2: More meetings mean faster progress
Some consider meetings the end-all for driving quick progress and moving projects and initiatives forward. This habit results from many days spent in company offices, proximity being the conduit to collaboration. However, meetings aren’t necessarily better than any of the other tools available to us.
Reality: There are tons of ways outside of meetings to collaborate
Meetings, like email, chat apps, project management tools, phone calls, in-person sessions, coffee shop syncs, and knowledge sharing documentation, are among the many tools available to facilitate collaboration. More meetings don’t necessarily lead to greater productivity and faster progress, especially if they are poorly planned and run inefficiently. Atlassian’s research on meetings revealed that workers rate meetings as ineffective 72% of the time, with 78% of people finding it hard to finish their work because they have to attend so many meetings. Not to mention that meeting hangovers are a major buzzkill.
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Myth #3: Taking breaks decreases productivity
Stepping away for a break might seem counterintuitive to a productive work session, but breaks are critical in maintaining and sustaining healthy work habits.
Reality: Unrelated work breaks boost mood and energy levels
Forcing productivity doesn’t actually make you more productive. “This law of diminishing returns ensures that people are more likely to make mistakes when they don’t step away from their desks. Workers don’t accomplish nearly as much of their to-do lists, either,” Kaitlyn Wells wrote for Wirecutter. Wells suggests scheduling breaks like any other commitment on your calendar, leaving your workspace (maybe head outdoors) or indulging in a quick nap to refresh and reset.
One study found that micro-breaks unrelated to work activities yielded various positive results. For example, engaging in physical activity increased positive emotions and decreased fatigue. Checking in with friends and family members was associated with increased feelings of vitality. It’s a win-win all the way around, and your work will still be there post-break when you’re in a better headspace.
Myth #4: Multitasking makes you more efficient
You’ve probably heard this: multitasking enables you to achieve more in less time, and will make you more efficient as a result, right? Not so fast. While it seems logical to believe that jamming more tasks and to-dos into a condensed timeframe will put the pressure on and help you achieve more in less time, multitasking does more harm than good.
Reality: Multitasking (and context switching) decreases productive time
Multitasking involves switching your attention to juggle various tasks at once. When you work on different kinds of tasks simultaneously (say, writing an email while listening to a meeting about a different topic), your brain has to switch contexts and scurry between various types of information. This method of operating consumes a lot of brain power.
While multitasking might feel productive and effective, your brain, and in many cases, the outputs of your performance, suggest otherwise. According to the American Psychological Association (APA) multitasking is costly, with even brief mental blocks from shifting between tasks costing as much as 40% of someone’s productive time.
Myth #5: AI will replace executive assistants
As AI widely ripples through white collar work, many technology experts and the media have suggested that AI will eventually replace administrative work, including the role of administrative and executive assistants. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated there were 483,000+ executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants in May 2023, excluding self-employed contractors serving in similar capacities—that would mean replacing nearly half a million people in these roles with AI in the U.S. alone.
Reality: AI helps workers focus on higher-value tasks by automating low-lift tasks
Executive assistants (and similar administrative roles) won’t disappear any time soon. Instead, AI will help the workers in these roles automate mundane tasks, freeing up their time for higher-value work. Take scheduling, for example. AI removes an executive assistant’s need to conduct time zone calculations or coordinate meetings with endless back-and-forth emails.
Being an assistant requires a personal and human touch, and an ability to build trusting relationships, pick up on contextual cues, and understand subtle nuances and emotions. The most effective executive assistants know when and how to ask the right questions, and they have the experience and critical thinking skills to:
- Identify a forgotten attendee who should be included in a sensitive meeting
- Gather information and add organizational context and environmental understanding
- Learn the preferences, habits, and work style of the executives they serve and match them accordingly
Adam Fidler summarized these traits nicely in a piece on LinkedIn: Why AI will never oust the Executive Assistant.
Myth #6: The more apps you use, the better
There’s a tool for almost everything; we’re constantly developing new and better ones. We have apps for organizing, collaborating, creating, managing projects, instant messaging, and more. And it can be tempting to add more apps to your stack, but more doesn’t always mean better in this case.
Reality: Too many apps can cause more harm than good
We’re more connected than ever, but it comes at a cost. App fatigue is a phenomenon that occurs as a result of toggling between various apps and platforms frequently and often, leaving people feeling exhausted and burned out. Not to mention that app fatigue also reduces productivity.
Apps are tools, and we can and should use them, but there is too much of a good thing at some point. If you spend more time toggling between apps, navigating notification overload, and locating information than digging into the good stuff, it might be time to consolidate and cut back. Conducting an audit of the tools your team uses to stay organized and productive is a helpful exercise to identify which apps are actually serving everyone and which ones are simply consuming time or potentially redundant.
Myth #7: Working longer hours leads to better results
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, wants to see Google’s AI-focused workers putting in 60 hours per week (and not remotely). Expectations like these perpetuate the falsehood that increasing working hours equals better results or more productivity.
Reality: Productivity drops when you work overtime
Research consistently shows that working more hours isn’t the answer to boosting productivity. Some evidence demonstrates workers aren’t productive for an 8-hour workday anyway; in fact, a recent study suggests workers might be productive for about 4.5 hours daily.
Max Freedman for Business News Daily reported that the United States ranked 13th worldwide in productivity, and all 12 countries ranked ahead of the U.S. had employees who worked fewer hours annually than U.S. employees.
And it’s not just about productivity (or lack thereof). Employee burnout can cost businesses up to $21,000 per employee in the United States, resulting in millions of dollars lost annually. Plus, working overtime can increase hazard rates, leading to injuries, accidents, and unfortunate mistakes for everyone involved, especially in physical settings like factories.
Myth #8: Busyness = productivity
“Always on,” hustle culture encourages constant busyness with little (if any) time to slow down and enjoy a moment of white space on your calendar. We cross tasks off our lists left and right, rush from one meeting to the next, take on more and more until we are bursting at the seams, but at what cost?
Reality: Busyness (aka pseudo-productivity) isn’t always valuable
It’s essential to remember that it doesn’t matter how busy you are if you aren’t doing the right things. You might feel productive in the short term, only to feel long-term that your efforts didn’t amount to anything worthwhile.
Cal Newport has a fascinating take on unending to-dos and tasks in today’s modern workplaces, which he calls “pseudo-productivity.” In Georgetown University’s “Ask a Professor” series with faculty, Newport explains:
“The constant busyness of modern American pseudo-productivity is a relatively recent phenomenon in the context of knowledge work. As I argue in my book, when the knowledge sector first emerged as a major economic force in the mid-twentieth century, managers and business owners, not sure how to measure productivity in a setting without widgets to count, fell back on using visible effort as a proxy for useful production.”
Avoid equating full calendars with little breathing room to a productive day. Preserving Focus Time for deep work is just as important as attending meetings. Happy workday calendars have a mix of both.
Myth #9: Remote work hurts productivity
One of the hottest workplace debates of the 2020s is whether remote work hurts productivity. While it’s true that a full-time remote job may not suit all types of workstyles, preferences, or roles, a blanket statement about remote work leading to decreased productivity is largely inaccurate.
Reality: Dispersed teams can be highly productive with the right collaboration practices
Research immediately following the rise in remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic suggested that productivity growth during 2019-2022 was positively associated with the rise of remote workers across 61 industries. It’s important to note that several factors, including company collaboration practices and communication, home environment, equipment, and self-accountability, can impact productivity across dispersed locations.
Atlassian is and continues to be one of the leading voices in the distributed work debate, backed by real-world data and practical tips for making remote work sustainable. In their report Lessons Learned: 1,000 Days of Distributed at Atlassian, they suggest that barriers to productivity (such as vague business goals) don’t disappear inside the walls of an office, but rather that it requires more intentional effort, whether working in-person or remotely, to create the right systems to support a productive environment.
About the author
Alyssa Towns has written productivity and time management content for Clockwise for several years. Early in her career, she dove into time management strategies to effectively manage her workday calendar and 10+ C-Suite officers' calendars across various organizations. She uses her training in change management to write time management, the future of work, and career content that helps people change their behaviors and habits. In addition, she writes about artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology for G2's Learn Hub. When she isn't writing, Alyssa enjoys trying new restaurants with her husband, playing with her Bengal cats, adventuring outdoors, or reading a book from her TBR list.
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