My students are working on a project that requires the use of what is frequently referred to as “productivity software.” In our case, they have their choice of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. These tools allow students to create flyers, brochures, budgets, letters, databases, presentations, and more. This has left me with the question: what does it mean to be productive? Further, why would this suite of tools be synonymous with productivity?
Am I productive if I write a letter? Am I being productive if I work on a complicated table full of important facts? If I spend three hours on my slideshow presentation, was I being productive? Surely I am being productive if I am using the productivity software, right?
Productivity software is only productive at one precise moment in time: when you’re done.
If I never finish a document, I really wasn’t productive was I? If I build the best presentation, but I don’t ever turn it in or present it, I was the exact opposite of the goal of the software. I was consuming time but never producing a product. How many times have you seen a student with a document open and you know they’ve worked on it, but they somehow find a way to not turn it in? Better yet, how many times have you done the exact same thing? How many products have you started on, never to finish? How many times have you left something incomplete? In my drafts folder in Gmail, right now, are multiple drafts of blog postings that I started but didn’t finish. In my documents folder are scores of Word files representing ideas I’ve had but haven’t finished. I have a notebook full of things I’ve scribbled down, never to leave the page.
Just because you think you’re being productive, doesn’t mean you are. “Productive” means “finished.” What will you finish
today?
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Greg Garner 