Want a Can’t Miss Productivity Tip? Forget About Being Productive.

People and industries measure how productive they are in similar ways. This extended period of remote work for many has revealed how flawed that can be.

How productive was your day?

It’s a complicated question, especially for some remote workers over the past year and a half.

Part of the problem is the definition of productivity. As a macroeconomic measure, it means the total output per hour of work. That is, the number of, say, frying pans a worker can make in an hour. The data is reported on a quarterly basis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and economists use it to determine a society’s efficiency and whether its standard of living is rising.