Productivity has, in many ways, become the be-all and end-all measurement to benchmark our careers. Scroll through social media or any corporate magazine, and you’ll be greeted with dozens of headlines about how you can maximise your productivity. If we can just work a little more, a little harder, we are told, we can achieve anything. And so, many of us find ourselves searching for ways to do away with any down time and to fit in as many productive hours into our working days as possible.

However, in recent years, some of us have begun to question the mania for hyper-productivity. We’ve started to realise that certain trends – girlboss and hustle culture, for example – are triggers for burnout and work-related exhaustion. It’s no wonder young generations are turning to trends like ’lazy girl jobs’ and ’quiet quitting’ as a form of resistance.

Now, a new study has once again brought the question of productivity to the fore. Roughly one-third of the average UK worker’s day is spent doing “performative work”, according to the study by Slack.

“Measuring how much workers are getting done by how much you can see them is concerning and clearly encourages an unhealthy culture of performativity and presenteeism,” said Chris Mills, head of customer success at Slack to HR Magazine. 

If we were watched less, we would have the time to do more, Mills seems to suggest. 

However, what if this critique of performative work is just another case of the culture of toxic productivity? And while performative work may not be the answer, why are we pushing ourselves to work ‘productively’ for 100% of each work day?

We spoke to Hayley Knight, career expert and the co-founder and comms director at marketing agency Be Yellow, as well as Laura Kingston, director of Leap Career Coaching, to find out.

What is performative work?

Performative work is the type of work that occurs when “people want to look busy and show they are constantly delivering output”, Kingston explains. It typically consists of admin tasks, meetings, catch-ups and overanalysing of internal processes.

If you have a colour-coded to-do list broken down into minuscule detail that takes hours of your day, this might be considered a performative task. Or, if your manager asks you to debrief them at the end of the day for an hour on what you did, this would be considered an unnecessary performative task.

Should we really try to minimise performative work?

As the Slack study shows, we tend to have a fear of time that isn’t ‘productive’ – and that includes time spent doing ‘performative work’. But should we really be trying to do away with all work that is performative? 

Well, it depends on the reasons behind the performative work. “[If] people want to look busy and show they are constantly delivering output,” as Kingston puts it, performative work can be redundant.

However, according to Knight, there are actually some benefits to performative work. After all, the people we work with do need to know what we’re doing. “Admin work is important and allows us to track and keep on top of our workload and streamline communications between the team and clients,” she says. Nevertheless, performative work shouldn’t take up a large portion of the day.

“Performative work should take no longer than two to three hours a day depending on the tasks at hand and how you approach things, and to be honest, it shouldn’t even take this long,” Knight says. “If you have the right processes and platforms in place that allow you to streamline tasks such as admin, planning and reporting, performative work shouldn’t take much time at all throughout the day.”

Performative work can add to your ‘real’ work

Many of us fall into the habit of creating admin tasks for ourselves to take up time at work, either to appear busy or to simply give ourselves a break from more intensive tasks. “We do performative work as a form of procrastination, to avoid larger tasks and create the appearance of completing work. Or we do it when we don’t have much else to do,” Knight says.

However, there are several problems with using performative work as mental and physical ‘downtime’ at work. 

For one thing, performative work can add to your workload, making your life more rather than less stressful.

“Meetings and video calls can also be seen as performative work, in exchange for actively making decisions or changes,” she says. “It can become unhelpful when it takes longer than is needed, and when it doesn’t actually help or support your other work. So, creating weekly reports, for example – especially ones that aren’t actually used or tracked and just disappear into your Google Drive. Performative work should be a means to an end, and designed to make work easier and more efficient.”

It’s even worse, she says, when managers fixate on your performative work, micromanaging your output by insisting on performative tracking of each and every process.

“This can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, and can often be more detrimental than beneficial,” she says, adding, “Excessive meetings and video calls, where there isn’t an agenda and they aren’t designed to move things forward, are both unhelpful and toxic.” 

So, what’s the alternative?

Although we often perceive performative work as unproductive work, it can be just as draining as what we think of as ‘productive work’ – the work we do when we’re on a roll or we’re pushing ourselves to get something done. It can even add to our workload. This means that if we use performative work as our downtime from trickier work tasks, we’re probably not getting the balance we need at work.

So, is there an alternative?

Firstly, it’s vital to schedule time into your calendar for productive downtime. Kingston suggests trying ‘thinking time’ as an alternative to too many performative tasks.

“I work with my clients to create ‘thinking’ time in their calendars to focus on strategy, reflection and taking time out of rushing around on autopilot,” says Kingston. “Clients have reported a massive shift in productivity as they can see the bigger picture and align to the overall organisational strategic goals. This can have a fundamental impact on your career success as you are uplevelling, I would suggest scheduling at least an hour a week of focus time in your diary.”

Knight has a similar approach. Her recommendation is to schedule in ‘deep work time’ when you can get crucial tasks done rather than getting distracted by performative tasks.

“I would recommend setting a chunk of time aside each week, or every couple of days (usually a few hours) for deep and meaningful work, where you aren’t distracted, and that drives results,” she says. “During this time, work through proactive tasks that you need to get off of your desk and realistically plan for the rest of the week.”

She also suggests scheduling in time for planning, assessing and sitting with your work – not filling in a new list or spreadsheet, but simply acknowledging where you are and what you’re doing.

We can all acknowledge that intensive work isn’t possible 100% of the time. But while many of us use performative work tasks to space out our days, this is rarely the answer. In fact, sometimes it’s much better to simply take a moment to reassess where you are. Maybe, you might even take 15 minutes away from your desk altogether. After all, performing productivity by giving yourself extra administrative tasks may make you feel like you’re busy, it’s rarely very helpful.

Images: Getty