Under Joe Biden, Americans Could Suffer Economic Super Collapse.... [OST Main Logo mobile]( [LOGO OST]( At times, our affiliate partners reach out to the Editors at Open Source Trades with special opportunities for our readers. The message below is one we think you should take a close, serious look at. [divider] The explosion in productivity tech means we can track everything from our steps to our to-do list. But should we? E Every day, Alex Donohue wakes up and checks how well he slept using the smartwatch that his wife brought him as an anniversary present. On work calls, he paces around the car park of his office to make sure that he fits in 10,000 steps a day. He describes tracking his screen time as a âritualâ. Donohue, a 31-year-old founder of a London-based PR agency, is a self-professed productivity addict. Heâs one of a growing number of people who see optimising their time using technology as an increasingly important part of their lives. And thereâs certainly no shortage of tools to help him out. While we once might have scribbled our to-do list down on a Post-it or used email flags to prioritise tasks, the last few years have ushered in a boom in apps promising to help us organise our time better and maximise our output. In a world in which everything seems trackable, and workplace ideas about time-management have comprehensively crossed over into our personal lives, these tools can seem irresistible. Yet the technologies we use to optimise our days can also start to control them. Since the pandemic hit and time has taken on a new meaning, it may be time to rethink our buy-in, and question whether logging, tracking and uploading tasks into various apps is really the path to success. Despite the raft of productivity products to choose from, perhaps the old methods of assessing what youâd accomplished in a day werenât really so inadequate after all. Why productivity boomed The desire to keep on top of your task list is hardly a new phenomenon. Leonardo da Vinci was writing to-do lists as far back as 1490, while Benjamin Franklin famously created a 13-week plan for self-improvement in the early 1700s. A few decades later, publishers were printing the first examples of daily planners, as people in industrialising nations grew interested in how to make more money. Alex Donohue is one of many using the latest tools to try and become more productive (Credit: Alex Donohue) Alex Donohue is one of many using the latest tools to try and become more productive (Credit: Alex Donohue) But our cultural obsession with personal productivity has been a relatively recent phenomenon as society digitalised and time-saving technology became a modern fixation. In the 1990s and early 2000s, technology that we now take for granted was promoted as a time-saving tool â shared calendars could eliminate complicated discussions to line up meetings, while search engines could save us hours digging up information. With the opportunity to produce more with potentially less work, itâs no wonder so many embraced a lifestyle that beckons more output through optimisation. Plus, thereâs a template for why maximum productivity is so desirable: success. High-profile individuals â particularly those working for the tech companies that designed some of these tools â began to attract attention for their personal productivity habits. Who could forget Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorseyâs 16-hour work days (including 0500 hydrotherapy sessions), or Google employee Marissa Mayerâs 130-hour work weeks? With the routines of high-achieving individuals increasingly fetishised, the digital productivity industry boomed, making its way into our offices, our leisure time and our homes. Now, itâs estimated that global sales of wearable devices that track daily activity and allow users to get notifications on the go will reach $1bn (£730m) by 2022. Companies continue to innovate; apps such as Forest, which encourages users to plant a virtual âtreeâ that only thrives when the user is doing a focused task, have become increasingly commonplace. Claire Wu, a neuroscientist, says that part of the attraction for users is the way many of these apps ârewardâ users. âWhen you tick off an item on your to-do list, or see your step count or sleep hours go up in an app, it creates a feedback loop where you experience an immediate reward,â she says. âWithout these tools, goals can also seem quite faraway and intangible. Productivity and optimisation tools help people to break down goals, and incorporate the same addictive and reward-based elements that you might find in a mobile game or social media app.â Neuroscientist Claire Wu says some productivity tools use 'rewards' to keep us engaged (Credit: Claire Wu) Neuroscientist Claire Wu says some productivity tools use 'rewards' to keep us engaged (Credit: Claire Wu) While ticking off an item on an old-fashioned to-do list might give us some level of satisfaction, technology games our desire to do more and rewards us in more overt ways. âA common theme in many apps is a representation of progress, such as badges or hitting a certain number,â explains Wu. âBut these can start to become more important than the outcome itself â for example, a person might do a workout but donât get the expected badge or points, and feel like the whole effort was a waste of time. But really, the workout is much more important than some arbitrary points.â Wu, who founded an app that helps people achieve long-term health optimisation goals, believes that some productivity tools can place pressure on users. She thinks that people may use metrics, and by extension their personal productivity, as a measure of how âgood or bad they are as a personâ. Working harder, not smarter? Thereâs also the question of whether we can really assess how much these apps are contributing to our output. âOur lives and work are increasingly digital,â says Almuth McDowall, professor of organisational psychology at Birkbeck, University of London. âBut itâs a complex world, and there is an information overload. Good apps, well used, can help us to negotiate this. But there is still a question of whether weâre really interested in becoming more productive, or simply âdoing more to seem effectiveâ. Why are we not getting better at managing the quality of our output? - Almuth McDowall Data certainly suggests that employees are struggling with a software overload. Research conducted in 2018 showed that the average operational support worker switched among 35 different applications more than 1,100 times during their working day. Yet despite the deluge of apps and tools, productivity is in decline in most highly industrialised countries, while burnout is on the rise. âEvidence shows that working hours and the time that we spend in online meetings is increasing, so it may be that we are working harder, not smarter,â suggests McDowall. âWhy are we not getting better at managing the quality of our output?â A step back, to think Into this mix, of course, has come Covid-19, disrupting our lives, working patterns and habits â and for some, itâs been an opportunity to recalibrate how they assess performance. Dear Fellow American, Joe Biden and the radical left are taking us down a path of no return. This is my third and possibly FINAL warning about the death of our economy. The pandemic has pushed many to the brink. But although we're exhausted and overwhelmed, some experts say we're not actually as burned out as we may think. O On lots of occasions, Iâve told myself â and my friends and colleagues â that Iâm experiencing burnout. Making a living as a freelancer can often mean working long hours, and trying to keep a lot of very different plates spinning at once. A few times a year, I hit what feels like a creative wall: Iâm fresh out of good ideas, and I just really need to nap. For a long time, Iâve been calling that burnout. But Iâve been wrong. We tend to think of burnout as an intangible â one of those things we canât define, and we just know when we feel it. Right now, more of us may be feeling it than ever. In this stage of the pandemic, after more than a year spent trying to navigate its challenges, the general feeling is that weâve all hit the wall. But there is a scientific definition of burnout, and standards by which to measure it. And based on that criteria, a lot of folks who think theyâre burnt out â myself included â really arenât. That doesnât mean we arenât on the way there, though, and understanding how to really measure burnout can help individuals and organisations change course before itâs too late. What burnout is â and isnât In 1981, Christina Maslach, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), to define and measure the condition. âThe challenge is people use the term to mean different things,â says Maslach. âItâs a catchy term, so people apply it to all kinds of stuff. So, are we all speaking the same language?â The MBI attempts to clarify the subject by evaluating burnout based on three criteria: exhaustion or total lack of energy, feelings of cynicism or negativity toward a job and reduced efficacy or success at work. Respondents get scores in all three areas along a continuum, from more positive to more negative. A burnout profile requires a negative score in all three. People use burnout as a synonym for tired, and theyâre missing the point that thereâs a world of difference between those two states â Michael Leiter âThereâs a tendency to think if you score negatively on one measure, youâre burnt out,â says Maslach, but thatâs an incorrect usage of the MBI. The biggest misconception about burnout, adds Michael Leiter, a Nova Scotia-based organisational psychologist and the co-author, with Maslach, of The Truth About Burnout, is that itâs the same as exhaustion. âPeople use burnout as a synonym for tired, and theyâre missing the point that thereâs a world of difference between those two states,â says Leiter. He gives the example of obstetricians, who often work chaotic schedules. âTheyâre delivering babies at all hours of the night, and theyâre totally exhausted, but theyâre bringing new life into the world, and making peopleâs lives better, and they care about that work. Thatâs overextended and exhausted, but itâs not burnout.â There are plenty of others who meet one of the MBI criteria. âThe second largest group, after people who are just exhausted, is people who arenât fully engaged,â says Leiter. âTheyâre going to work and itâs not exciting, it just pays the bills. Thereâs another group that are just cynical. They donât care about the clientele, or the work.â Still others may have low efficacy, with careers that are stalled for one reason or another. But fewer people can report that all three conditions apply. I canât. While Iâve definitely experienced exhaustion, and even some disengagement, I still love what I do and havenât become cynical about my work. It takes all three â exhaustion, cynicism and lack of efficacy â to get whatâs scientifically defined as burnout. The majority of us arenât there. âItâs not an epidemic; itâs over-diagnosed,â says Leiter. But that doesnât mean there isnât a problem, or that conversations around burnout arenât increasing for a reason. âQualities of burnout are on the rise,â concedes Leiter. âCertainly, more people are heading in that direction.â Burnout isnât black and white Burnout is a spectrum, and most of us are on it. Early this year, when job search site Indeed surveyed 1,500 US workers across ages and industries, more than half reported that theyâre experiencing burnout. And more than two-thirds said the pandemic had made burnout worse. That survey did not use the MBI, and chances are most of those respondents were using the colloquial definition of burnout, not the scientific one. But while burnout â the kind defined by three negative MBI scores â is a profile that Maslach says typically applies to 10% to 15% of people, that doesnât mean everyone else is all the way on the other end of the spectrum. In fact, Maslach and Leiterâs newer research identifies three profiles in between: overextended, ineffective and disengaged. Evidence suggests more than half of employees fall into one of these profiles, with a strong negative score in exhaustion, efficacy or cynicism. Theyâre not yet burnt out â but theyâre on the way. Many people equate fatigue with burnout, but experts say that burnout is a totally different state than just exhaustion (Credit: Alamy) Many people equate fatigue with burnout, but experts say that burnout is a totally different state than just exhaustion (Credit: Alamy) For people in many professions, says Leiter, things have only got worse as a result of the pandemic, with efficacy issues especially becoming overwhelming. âSchoolteachers have struggled to continue teaching, and havenât felt accomplished,â he says. âThey just know theyâre not being the teacher they were before, and thatâs discouraging. Itâs the same for physicians. Itâs improved, but early in the game there were no protocols for dealing with Covid, and everything they were doing was wrong.â Those issues have shifted the data on burnout. A study conducted between March and June of 2020 administered a series of tests, including a burnout inventory similar to the MBI, to more than 3,500 healthcare workers in the UK, Poland and Singapore. Just under 67% measured as burnt out. While historically the true burnout profile for employees in all professions hovers just above 10%, Maslach says âthatâs clearly gone upâ in light of the pandemic. Now, she believes, it may be closer to 20%. And thatâs a huge problem, because true burnout canât be fixed with a vacation or a wellness retreat. âWhen people really get to the extreme, the vast majority canât go back to the same employer or the same kind of work,â says Leiter. âThey have to change careers. Burnout runs so deep â just even the feel of going into that building, or that sort of building can be a trigger. It very often prompts career change.â Why measurement matters Avoiding true burnout on a wide scale is vital, especially because it could mean a drain of qualified people from skilled professions. Thatâs where the MBI, and tests like it, become invaluable tools. Learning that I was not, in fact, experiencing real burnout was helpful. I was able to evaluate what I was actually feeling (overextension), and start thinking about what was causing that and what changes I could make. That is the point of a burnout inventory; itâs not really about diagnosing or ruling out burnout. In fact, says Maslach, âitâs not a diagnostic tool at all. People have misused it that way, but itâs a research measure.â Itâs not an epidemic; itâs over-diagnosed â Michael Leiter Though itâs administered to individuals, what the MBI is really designed to measure is their environment. âIf there are negative scores, it doesnât mean the problem is the individual. Itâs what theyâre responding to,â says Maslach. âYouâre not trying to figure out who itâs happening to, youâre trying to figure out whyitâs happening. You donât use it by itself, you use it with other data to say why is the pattern of scores the way it is? Those scores should be used as warning signals.â An organisation seeing scores on the negative end of the spectrum should be acting quickly, says Maslach, and that doesnât mean offering yoga classes or mindfulness seminars. âWork is getting tougher, longer and harder to do. People are working more hours because theyâre scared they wonât get a promotion, or will lose their job. Doing more with less is at the heart of corporate culture, and thatâs not how people do the best work,â she says. âThereâs this gigantic self-care industry out there all focused on how to cope with that stress; but to prevent, or reduce, or eliminate burnout, itâs not about fixing the people. Itâs about fixing the job.â Itâs not actually about measuring how many workers are or are almost burnt out, says Maslach. Itâs about identifying workplaces with unmanageable workloads, and using that information to give employees more control, better tools and the discretion to figure out how to do their jobs better â without burning out. âThereâs that old saying, âif you canât stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,ââ says Maslach. âThe thrust of our argument is, why donât you change the heat? How about redesigning the kitchen?â [Ignore this message at your own risk.]( Sincerely, Jim Rickards P.S. What you saw happen on Election night was nothing compared to what I fear is next. [The time to prepare is now.]( [devider] [Slogan]( You {EMAIL} received this email as a result of your consent to receive 3rd party offers at our another website. 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