Busy But Not Productive

If you manage people in Australia right now, you are probably feeling two forces at once.

First, the competitive reality. Costs are sticky, customers are choosier, and “doing the same with a bit more effort” is not a plan. To be a sustainable business you need sustainable productivity gains.

Second, the national conversation. The Australian Productivity Commission has been tasked with a set of inquiries aimed at “meaningful and measurable reforms to boost productivity” under a five-pillar agenda.

That macro work matters. But I keep coming back to a slightly uncomfortable thought, a large share of Australia’s productivity challenge will be won or lost in the day-to-day decisions made at the work team level.

At this level, productivity improvements usually come from behavioural shifts, not motivational posters.

Time management that respects reality (finite hours, cognitive limits, energy cycles)
Communication norms that reduce churn (fewer “quick calls”, clearer writing, tighter meeting hygiene)
Empowerment with accountability (clarity on outcomes, autonomy on how)
Tech and AI used to remove friction (drafting, summarising, analysis, triage, not just novelty)

None of that is radical. And maybe not radical enough. Here is the mildly controversial bit.

I’m finding myself joining the “kill the to-do list” crowd. Or at least demote the to-do list. Not because lists are evil. I love lists and some are useful. But for many managers and teams, the classic to-do list becomes a productivity trap, it rewards motion over progress.

Cal Newport puts it bluntly: “To-do lists are a terrible daily planning tool.”

Why would a simple list be so harmful?

To-do lists flatten importance
They put “reply to email” and “finalise the pricing strategy” in the same format. The brain naturally drifts to the easy win. You end up optimising for crossing things off, not moving the needle.
They hide the one variable that actually matters, time
A list rarely captures duration, dependencies, or energy requirements. Newport’s critique is that lists are missing “how long each task requires” and “how much and where your free time is”. So, you make “random decisions” all day, then wonder why the important work never happens.
They can amplify stress and reduce judgement
A long list can create a constant sense of deficit. You may feel busy, but not effective. And that feeling often leads to more reactive behaviour. Tim Ferriss has a line that stings, even if you only half agree with it: “Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

I would not frame it quite that sharply, but the underlying point is useful, busyness can be a way to avoid the few uncomfortable actions that would actually improve results.
They quietly undermine empowerment
When work is managed as an endless list of tasks, people start acting like task-completers. You get less judgement, less ownership, less initiative. Teams become dependent on managers for prioritisation.

What to do instead? Plan outcomes, then constrain the work.

“Kill the to-do list” does not mean “stop planning”. It means shifting from task accumulation to outcome discipline.

A practical alternative I have seen work for middle and senior managers is:

Choose 1–3 outcomes for the week
Not activities. Outcomes. Something you can recognise as “done”.

Time-block the hard work first
Put the most valuable work into the calendar while the week is still clean. Lists can sit underneath, but your Calendar becomes the commitment device.

Create explicit trade-offs
If a new priority arrives, something else must move. If everything is a priority, nothing is.

Reset team norms
Agree on response times, meeting rules, and the like. Small norms compound.

Use AI to reduce low-value effort
Let AI draft first passes, summarise threads, create meeting notes, turn rough thoughts into structured options. This is not about replacing judgement; it is about buying back attention.

A “less but better” philosophy (and why it feels confronting)

There is a reason this approach can feel uncomfortable. It forces you to admit that capacity is limited, and that saying “yes” to everything is not leadership.

Leo Babauta captures the spirit: “Limit yourself to fewer goals, and you’ll achieve more.”

In practice, this means some work does not get done. That is the point. The controversy is not the method, it is the permission to focus.

A humble challenge

I am not claiming to have solved productivity. But if you and your team feel flat-out and progress feels slow, it might not be a resourcing problem. It might be a prioritisation and planning problem disguised as a workload problem.

Try this for two weeks:

Replace daily to-do lists with a daily outcome
Time-block the work that creates that outcome
Keep a “parking lot” list for everything else

Then look at what changes: not just output, but stress, clarity, and decision quality.

If it works, you have found a micro productivity lever that compounds. If it does not, you will still learn where the friction really sits.

If you tell me your industry and team size, I can suggest a couple of “kill the to-do list” implementations that fit your context (professional services, operations, project delivery, leadership teams, etc.).

Busy But Not Productive

Stoke Consulting