Productivity talks

Productivity, for design and product teams, is about getting meaningful work done: the focused time needed to think through a problem, the conditions that let a team make progress, and the habits and tools that reduce wasted effort. It is less about doing more tasks and more about doing the right ones well.

It matters for UI, UX and product design because creative work depends on long stretches of uninterrupted attention. Meetings, constant notifications and unclear priorities break that attention, while trust, autonomy and good leadership protect it. How a company is managed, whether in an office or as a remote team, directly affects the quality of what it builds.

The four talks here run from 2010 to 2016. Jason Fried gives two: “Why work doesn’t happen at work” at TED Talks in 2010 and “Managing for Productivity & Happiness” at The Next Web Conference in 2016. At the 99U Conference, Simon Sinek presents “Why Leaders Eat Last” and Jason Goldberg talks about “You Can’t Iterate Yourself To A Business Model”. Related themes include creativity, team management, happiness, leadership and remote teams.