Productivity Without Purpose.

We seem to be living in an era of productivity without real purpose. Unless, of course, the purpose is to do more things in less time — for the sheer joy, or lack thereof, of doing more things in less time — and to feel good about that, and to end the week feeling efficient and forward-looking. But that's not how it lands.

Take LinkedIn. Every post, bar a few creative exceptions, is AI boilerplate now. The same sentences, the same setups, the same tone. Everything reeks of a common average — as though everyone, everywhere, had always spoken in exactly the same way. Or at least that's what the feed would have you believe.

The work is the work

But let's not blame the AI, and let's not blame LinkedIn. Let's blame the people and the brands who seemingly do not care how they come across — despite protestations to the contrary that they do, actually, care. The facts are plain enough: the work they put out is the work, and we must judge them on that. And the judgment is pretty damning.

Because if a brand doesn't care enough about who they are, and who they're talking to, to write something with some thought and some personality — their own — what does that tell us? Let's be generous here. Even fed through an AI, you can make a thing read better if you take the time to sculpt it, to teach it, to correct it. You can have it read enjoyably. And if a social post doesn't warrant that time, fine — that's a decision, and an honest one. But spitting out the default, as most seem happy to, says something quieter and worse: they don't value their time. Or yours.

There might be a lot more on the docket at the end of the week. They might well feel they've done more. But something has been degraded in the doing, and they are lesser for it. Productivity without purpose.

An analogue turn

It's annoying. Annoying enough that we find ourselves turning away, more and more, from the feeds — from the places where brands congregate to find business and then shout about the finding. It all just feels so artificial. And once that starts happening — and there's already a rise in fanzines, in print, in the small and deliberately slow — maybe we arrive somewhere more interesting: back at an analogue aesthetic, of taking more care over things and details.

If you take care over things and details, everything is better. The work is better. You feel better. You may not be able to say you did ten LinkedIn posts this week — but what you did do will be better work, and surely that should count.

Getting comfortable

The hard part, of course, is doing work that is good and true and honest while everyone shouts louder. We're all going to have to get comfortable, I'm afraid: the people who do things properly are going to have to live alongside a very shouty, loud world of people who don't — brands, companies. Or who say they do, which is worse, and don't.

So you hope you can cut through. And hope, as we all know, isn't a strategy. But there are ways of reaching new people in a fluid, human manner — using the best of the tech while keeping your brain, your character and your taste in the room. Our outreach tool, Fly Away Paul, is pretty good at exactly that. It's how we've stepped around the feeds altogether: contact the businesses we admire directly, let the work speak for itself, and — with any luck — get known for the work.

Here's to purpose.

If you take care over things and details, everything is better. You feel better.