If I'm being honest, there are certain places where I worked where I definitely wasn't working at peak efficiency. I could say I was operating in an environment that prevented that (bureaucracy) or you could say I'm lazy. Neither opinion would be 100% inaccurate.

So part of this rings hollow because it isn't always the case that knowledge workers are working as hard as they can.

So, it is true that a manager could (and they often did) try to get me to work faster. But, it rarely worked because I was unable to get past the cultural problems in the environment or because I'm just lazy.

Both of those problems seem like something a manager could have worked on. Those are really hard problems and take a lot of courage. Instead of dealing with just me, that manager would have needed to take on toxic things inside the team, or even cross team issues. Probably too much for one manager. But that might have solved those problems and that is probably what would have solved my laziness.

It never happened, so they just fired me. Oh well.

I do wonder if a manager that came in with a question/assertion like "you aren't working at full efficiency, and we both know it, AND I'm assuming you want to and aren't lazy, so let's have an honest talk about fixing that..." Would I have really shared what was there and worked towards solving it with them? Not sure.

When I'm not working at peak efficiency, it's usually because:

- I don't have enough autonomy to perform my job at a high level.

- I don't have enough purpose, I'm bored, or I'm working on a lingering problem that only exists because corners were cut to meet deadlines.

- Burnout from poor work-life-balance, or operating in crisis mode for too long.

- Working under a manager that micro-manages, or has poor people skills.

Solving this problem is far outside my expertise (and pay grade) but it seems like properly constructed incentives would help.

No, but you can decrease your “think rate”, or more precisely reduce its quality, and avoiding these behaviors will improve it:

- poor sleep hygiene

- working hours not aligned with your natural body rhythm, e.g. getting up too early (a big problem with teenagers)

- conversely, oversleeping

- poor nutrition

- alcohol or drugs

- caffeine: short-term boost, long-term drain

- poor ergonomics, e.g. your office chair

- lack of exercise

And of course the biggest productivity killer of all: juggling too many tasks and constant interruptions breaking flow

Juice of Sapho?