As the NCAA men’s basketball tournament opened today, the New York Times college sports blog, “The Quad,” embraced the myth with a headline warning that U.S. workplaces were entering the “Zero Productivity Zone.”

“It is officially time to celebrate the two days a year when American productivity goes in the toilet and it’s a good thing,” a post at the blog declared, adding:

“Thursday and Friday are like a little escape hatch from the usual grind, with N.C.A.A. tournament games going non-stop and while the Puritans of the business world can wring their bony hands over paying people who are suddenly obsessed with the fate of Virginia Commonwealth, the proper response is: tough noogies.”

Sure, some of that’s meant tongue in cheek. Or faintly snarky.

But, still: Media Myth Alert is tempted to say “tough noogies” in calling out a blog post that so blithely repeats the dubious claim and contributes to perpetuating a hardy seasonal myth. And one that does so without data or documentation.

A quick LexisNexis search finds other media outlets indulging in the productivity myth, too.

The Christian Science Monitor, for example, reported the other day:

“According some employment specialists, the next two or three weeks often rank low for productivity, as employees either keep one eye on the scoreboard or just try to cope with less sleep. Even leading up to the second round, which starts Thursday, many employees spend a lot of company time ‘researching’ teams to compete in their office pools or in ‘bracketology’ showdowns online.”

To support such assertions the Monitor article turned to estimates by the Chicago outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which over the years has propelled the myth with outlandish claims about productivity loss.

This year, the firm is a bit coy about projecting productivity losses. It claims in a news release that U.S. employers today and Friday may end up paying $175 million in wages to workers distracted by the games.

But Challenger proceeds to dismiss its own estimate, saying it’s not to be taken seriously.

On the second page of its news release, Challengers advises taking the estimate “with a grain of salt, as it is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek look at how technology continues to blur the line between our professional and personal lives.

“Ultimately,” the statement says, “March Madness will not even register a blip on the nation’s economic radar and even the smallest company will survive the month without any impact on their bottom line.”

Not even a blip.

Which makes one wonder why the company offers such outlandish estimates in the first place, given that they inject fresh life into a myth that deserves disposal on the slag heap of statistical imprecision. Is it so eager for free publicity?

And as Carl Bialik, the Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy, asked in a column seven years ago, “why does the press report studies whose authors don’t take them that seriously?”

Why, indeed?

No doubt because they’re simplistic and easily accessible. As I point out in my latest book, Getting It Wrong, among the most tenacious media myths are those that “minimize or negate complexity” and “offer simplistic and misleading interpretations instead.”

WJC

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The Productivity Myth

Another thing they believe is that if they spend time setting up and maintaining a todo-list and doing regular (weekly?) reviews, they’ll never get anything done.

Of course, most systems take some time to get set up, but once you start using your system, the time you use in “maintenance” is more than compensating for the time you save not having to think about what to do (next)– or making up for the things you didn’t remember to do.  So, you see, having a system creates extra time!

I know, improving your system will save you more time, so you have to invest in making things better…every time! This will cost you more time in the beginning, but it will save you more and more. Now, if someone shows you a shortcut on how to get things done in a smarter, more efficient way, you are actually improving a lot.

Then the choice is yours what you would do with the extra time you have saved. You could invest it in saving more time in other areas of your life, or you could have more fun with friends and family or you could spend it with doing nothing and not using the shortcut at all. This way you can continue to complain and demotivate others  But that’s not who we are, right?

So, what would you do? And what does your system looks like?

Read this article, if you want to read more on productivity myths.

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker