The cult of productivity is killing is | Fortune

"It's mid-morning in a corner office, and a manager scrolls through Slack as the familiar chime ricochets against the tightness in her jaw. Her calendar is jammed to the edges, and she moves from a video call to a flood of email replies, while the strategy deck she promised for next week remains untouched in another window as a reminder that the work that matters most keeps being pushed aside."

"Sound familiar? If this resonates with your own life and career, you're not alone. This is what corporate survival mode looks like in 2025. Many argue that disengagement or the complexities of remote work are what threaten progress, but perhaps it's the cult of productivity and the fixation on visibility and measurement that reduces work to performance. We mistake constant exposure for contribution, and the result is motion without momentum and busyness without value."

"Survival mode has deep evolutionary roots. It sharpens our attention in emergencies, flooding the body with stress hormones, and narrows our focus until the threat has passed. That vigilance kept our ancestors alive when they heard a rustle in the bushes. In modern organizations it corrodes, as what was once lifesaving in rare bursts has become a constant hum, turning our days into a string of micro-emergencies where fears about the future bleed into present reactions."

A manager experiences constant interruptions—Slack chimes, back-to-back video calls, overflowing email—and keeps strategic work repeatedly deferred. Modern workplaces elevate visibility and measurement, turning contribution into performance and valuing exposure over impact. Constant exposure produces motion without momentum and busyness without value. Survival mode has evolutionary origins: acute stress sharpened attention during real threats, but chronic activation narrows focus, erodes creativity, and fosters repetitive thought and behavior such as procrastination and irritability. Organizations have converted rare, lifesaving vigilance into sustained micro-emergencies, imposing demands the human nervous system cannot sustain and leaving workers overwhelmed and uncertain about their work's meaning.

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