Stress-free productivity does exist

You leave the room or end the video call, and for a moment you feel like something has been resolved. There was a conversation, ideas were put on the table, and even a verbal agreement was reached. But twenty minutes later, as you’re already focused on another task, you still don’t feel entirely at ease: What exactly was decided? Who was responsible for what? And what did that comment about “we need to take our time” really mean?

There’s a form of work-related anxiety that’s particularly unsettling because it doesn’t quite fit our understanding of stress. I’m not referring to the typical anxiety of an overwhelmed professional—someone with many ongoing projects, some of which are in crisis mode, and an inbox that just keeps growing.

Hello everyone!

It’s seven o’clock in the evening. You haven’t moved a single box, you haven’t run, and you haven’t carried anything heavier than a cell phone. And yet, you feel that heavy, almost physical exhaustion that you normally associate with a day of house moving or a long workout. You sit down on the couch and don’t even have the energy to decide what to have for dinner. Why are you so tired?

In 1982, General Motors closed its plant in Fremont, California. It was GM’s worst factory: absenteeism routinely exceeded 20%, there were more than 800 pending union complaints, and wildcat strikes were almost routine. The cars coming out of that plant were of the lowest quality in the system. Toyota reopened it two years later as NUMMI, rehiring almost all of the same workers, including the former strike leaders. It used the same machinery. It manufactured similar cars. And in less than a year, the plant went on to have the best quality in GM. Absenteeism dropped to 2%.