When I encountered this New York Times article on tracking worker productivity, it sent shivers down my spine.

With the boom in remote work arrangements, many employers are on edge. Concerned that folks are at home scrolling TikTok or watching Netflix when they should be working, organizations are dictating that employees install new productivity-tracking software.

Some of the technology is invasive, capturing screenshots of employees’ computers at random intervals or penalizing employees for inactivity, which they define as a resting cursor.

The Times article makes a compelling case for not tracking any worker’s productivity, but as someone who works in a creative field, I’m here to ask you to spare a thought for creatives, specifically.

What is productivity, anyway?

According to Oxford English Dictionary, productivity is, “The effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output (of goods, products, etc.) per unit of input (of labour, materials, equipment, etc.).”

Measuring this input/output ratio may make sense when discussing the number of chairs you produce at your furniture manufacturing plant, but how do you quantify all that goes into a great ad campaign, head-bopping pop song, or arresting portrait on canvas?

Where does input begin and end?

The concept of tracking productivity is inherently at odds with the idea of creativity because the entire creative process defies measurement.

What does a unit of creativity look like?

Pop superstar Lady Gaga’s approach to songwriting offers a great example of the inanity of trying to identify those discrete creativity blocks. Mother Monster has said that it took her 10 short minutes to pen some of her megahits, including “Born This Way.”

Thinking of Gaga’s input as the time she spent scribbling in her notebook is one way to approach it. Minutes are tidy, quantifiable units.

But then there’s the unanswerable question of how to account for all that went into Gaga’s formation as a person and artist that allowed her to create that song in 600 seconds.

The song opens with a story about her childhood. Does Gaga include the time spent talking with her mom about acceptance and self-worth on her time-tracking sheet?

What about all the hits Gaga wrote before “Born This Way”? Surely those songwriting experiences informed the speed with which she wrote and the quality of the song. How does she account for the days or weeks spent on those earlier tunes?

How many hours did she marinate–consciously or unconsciously–on the themes she touches upon in the lyrics? How would she even begin to understand and tally up that time in the hypothetical “Born This Way” productivity calculator?

Accounting for inputs in creative work gets messy fast. When it comes to creativity, there is no definitive unit by which to measure the efforts that create the output.

Output versus impact

Speaking of outputs, they’re just about as impossible to measure as the inputs.

Sure, in any creative industry, there are metrics and accolades. Marketers track things like clickthrough rate or cost per click on a digital ad. We may hope for recognition of great creative work in the form of an industry award. But isn’t the impact of the creative work–if the work is any good–far greater than those 100,000 clicks or the shiny award placard?

Returning to our gal Lady Gaga, here are some of those trackable outputs for “Born This Way”:

• The song was on the Billboard Hot 100 for 20 weeks, spending six weeks in the number one spot.
• Lady Gaga’s 2017 Super Bowl halftime show–where the song featured prominently–is the second-most-watched halftime show of all time.
• “Born This Way” is certified 6x Platinum in the US, 2x Platinum in the UK, and 4x Platinum in Australia.

Beyond those quantifiable outcomes, though, we have incalculable impacts.

“Born This Way” has become a queer anthem, encouraging us all to remember that we’re on the right track, baby, we were born this way. How many folks feeling unlovable and out of place have heard this song and felt comforted or seen?

The lyrics calling for acceptance toward people of all races, sexual orientations, and gender identities played at the Super Bowl back when the league was mired in discussions around Colin Kaepernick’s protests against police brutality. What impact did the song’s presence in that space at that time have on discussions about race and equity in America?

It’s impossible to measure or track these impacts, which are undoubtedly part of the output of the song.

The concept of tracking productivity is inherently at odds with the idea of creativity because the entire creative process defies measurement.

What does a unit of creativity look like?

In the end, the idea of tracking productivity in creative work really comes down to this: You shouldn’t track creatives’ productivity because you can’t track creatives’ productivity. The danger of trying to quantify something like creativity is that you stifle the ineffable process that is a part of solid creative work.

Just because someone’s cursor isn’t moving doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about the output. Just because they’re on YouTube doesn’t mean that video won’t somehow inform their completed effort.

Instead of trying to turn the creative process into a series of measurable units, step back and trust that your team has the goods to deliver and the integrity to get the job done. Let this be your mantra: They’re on the right track, baby, they were born this way.

Ready to meet a team that was born to do great creative work? Give us a shout.