JC's Newsletter - Productivity gains and Parkinson’s law
Dear friends,Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on. I’m going to try to be provocative in those essays to trigger a discussion with the community. Please answer, comment, and ping me! If you are not subscribed yet, it's right here! If you like it, please share it on social networks! Productivity gains and Parkinson’s lawThis essay was written by my co-founder Charles Gorintin. At Alan we believe in gains in productivity, and we see them coming through personal efficiency, AI, better tooling… We count on these gains to reach our ambitious objectives for 2024. Yet when gaining productivity we have to fight Parkinson’s law: “work expands to fill the time available for its completion”. The example given in the eponymous book (from 1955!) is of a businessman sending a letter in 3 minutes, vs an old lady spending a whole day to send a postcard. Basically, we could gain a lot of efficiency, then just spend our time gaining on inefficiency and a false sense of busyness. With AI-driven tools, tasks that used to take hours are now completed in minutes, so we get either a significant output boost or we get complacency where time savings are wasted in a lax approach to task management. The real challenge then lies in how we invest the time saved thanks to AI and technology. Do we channel these gains towards enhancing the quality of our work, exploring creative solutions, and expanding our skills, or do we allow ourselves to fall victim to Parkinson's Law? To combat this human tendency, we need to create an environment where we're slightly stretched – engaged and efficient, but not overwhelmed. We set stricter deadlines, we define clear goals, and we focus on the impact of our work. We can reinvest the time gained into the quality of our product, or in just doing more stuff. The more efficient Alaners are, the less people we need for a project, and in effect we reduce communication overhead. Once we are aware of the tendency for work to expand, we can start setting ambitious goals, and strive to be slightly stretched. That way, we can ensure that our increased efficiency leads to higher quality work and more significant achievements for the whole of Alan. Some good articles I have read this week👉 Decoding the Huberman Phenomenon: Science Meets Society (Part 1) (The Health 3.0 Newsletter)
👉 Gokul Rajaram on X (X)
👉 Amjad Masad on X (X)
👉 Early dinner, the key to reducing cardiovascular risk, according to a study (radiofrance)
It’s already over! Please share JC’s Newsletter with your friends, and subscribe 👇 Let’s talk about this together on LinkedIn or on Twitter. Have a good week! |
Older messages
Health & “Joie de Vivre”
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
JC's Newsletter #203
AI will change the way we build product
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
JC's Newsletter #202
Balance between support, challenge & trust
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
JC's Newsletter #201
The power of radical transparency in the world of AI
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
JC's Newsletter #200
Watch expenses like a hawk
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
JC's Newsletter #199
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