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Productivity: is a score of 100 perfect or average?

I like how the concept of 'productivity' is being used: it says how productive you are, compared to other RescueTime users.

But I do find it odd that Productivity is measured with a number - *just* a number. How productive have I been today? 86, woo hoo! But is that like 86 on a scale from 0 to 100, which would mean I'm doing well? Or does it work like IQ, with a 100 being exactly average by definition?

There is also another number in the little graph: in microfont, it says' 98 (hi). What's that? Is 98 my personal hi-score, from a previous day? Is it the highest score by any RescueTime user, that day?
 
indifferent I’m confused
Inappropriate?
2 people have this question

  • Inappropriate?
    For now, productivity and efficiency scores are based on the RT population as a whole... So, roughly speaking, if your score is 98 you're roughly better than 98% for that period.

    We're still working a bit on the formula and, as RescueTime groups improve, it obviously gets exciting to see how you compare to your peers (rather than all RescueTimers).

    The hi and lo scores refer to the little spark chart-- the last 10 weeks. So that's your hi and lo scores for that period.
     
    happy I’m thankful
  • jaapstronks
    Inappropriate?
    Thanks; I'm looking forward to features making it possible to compare myself to people with related jobs. Because I have not been very productive these last few days, but since all of my work is being done at this computer, working for 4 hours (instead of 8) makes me more productive than almost everybody else, while in reality, I am not.

    I must add, though, that the productivity measurement is biased by design. That's because the -2 to 2 scale doesn't match the nature of productivity.

    Here's why: one must actively tag applications / sites and grade these tags in order to capture one's productivity. The default value of a tag is 0. But what is that, really? When I'm working, I'm using applications graded as 2. But what is 0 compared to 2? 0 is 'nothing', but it's not being idle. It's being unproductive. But what is -2, then?

    In short, -2 to 2 doesn't make sense. It's a dimension too many. Watching YouTube is the same as being idle. But there shouldn't be something that's even more unproductive than being idle (or watching YouTube). That would only make sense if time could be destroyed: a score of 1 for reading a textbook to learn French, 0 for being idle, -1 for playing a mind-numbing game that makes me instantly forget the French words I just learned. But that usually doesn't happen.

    So, I think tags should be graded from 0 to someting. Perhaps 0 to 1, you're working or you're not working.

    But still: not everyone grades their tags. I think, many are tracking applications, or sets of websites, I suspect. It's a great system to only track how many minutes you've spent watching YouTube or using Microsoft Office applications, without the need to rank applications on the productivity scale. So, if people don't bother to actively grade their tags, their productivity is rated as being (close to) zero, making even non-productive people who bother to grade their tags (since they ARE interested in being more productive) seem more productive than they really are. Yes, that's likely: people with productivity problems use this software for tracking especially that; they are unjustly compared to other productive people who are not interested in grading their tags.

    Or do you only measure people who have graded tags? Still, many of those could use the scale in unintended ways that make sense for them personally, but which unintentionally makes the aggregation of data impure. Because, if I'm at 98 with only a 4 hours of productive work, the average must be between 2 or 3, tops. If so, I don't think the aggregated productivity average holds much meaning. I wish you good luck with your efforts to make the comparison more meaningful, good to hear you're working on that!
     
    happy I’m enjoying thinking about this
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