Understanding Personal Productivity: How Knowledge Workers Define, Evaluate, and Reflect on Their Productivity
Abstract
Productivity tracking tools often determine productivity based on the time interacting with work-related applications. To deconstruct productivity's diverse and nebulous nature, we investigate how knowledge workers conceptualize personal productivity and delimit productive tasks in both work and non-work contexts. We report a 2-week diary study followed by a semi-structured interview with 24 knowledge workers. Participants captured productive activities and provided the rationale for why the activities were assessed to be productive. They reported a wide range of productive activities beyond typical desk-bound work-ranging from having a personal conversation with dad to getting a haircut. We found six themes that characterize the productivity assessment-work product, time management, worker's state, attitude toward work, impact & benefit, and compound task and identified how participants interleaved multiple facets when assessing their productivity. We discuss how these findings could inform the design of a comprehensive productivity tracking system that covers a wide range of productive activities.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Meetings, Administrative, Planning and Private were prevalent in both Kim et al.'s and Czerwinski et al.'s work.
“For example, Meetings , Administrative , Planning and Private were also prevalent in both Kim et al. 's and Czerwinksi et al. 's work [60], [62].”
From Detecting Developers' Task Switches and Types (2022) · cites this paper as [62]
Cites
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006) · Qualitative Research in Psychology · doi:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa · Cited by 194,414 · see citing works
Motivation through the design of work: test of a theory
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976) · Organizational Behavior and Human Performance · doi:10.1016/0030-5073(76)90016-7 · Cited by 8,962 · see citing works
Diary Methods: Capturing Life as it is Lived
Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145030 · Cited by 3,843 · see citing works
Self-monitoring of expressive behavior.
Snyder, M. (1974) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0037039 · Cited by 3,409 · see citing works
Work engagement and financial returns: a diary study on the role of job and personal resources
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2009) · Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1348/096317908x285633 · Cited by 1,308 · see citing works
Weekly work engagement and performance: a study among starting teachers.
Bakker, A. B., & Bal, M. P. (2010) · Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1348/096317909x402596 · Cited by 1,249 · see citing works
Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge
Drucker, P. F. (1999) · California Management Review · doi:10.2307/41165987 · Cited by 1,111 · see citing works
Knowledge-worker productivity: the biggest challenge
Drucker, P. F. (2006) · IEEE Engineering Management Review · doi:10.1109/emr.2006.1679053 · Cited by 1,097 · see citing works
A diary study of task switching and interruptions
Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E., & Wilhite, S. (2004) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/985692.985715 · Cited by 830 · see citing works
Thinking for a living: how to get better performance and results from knowledge workers
(2006) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-3471 · Cited by 781 · see citing works
Wright, T. A., Cropanzano, R., & Bonett, D. G. (2007) · Journal of Occupational Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/1076-8998.12.2.93 · Cited by 573 · see citing works
No task left behind?: examining the nature of fragmented work
Mark, G., Gonzalez, V. M., & Harris, J. (2005) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1054972.1055017 · Cited by 503 · see citing works
The New Productivity Challenge
Drucker, P. F. (2018) · Quality in Higher Education · doi:10.4324/9781351293563-2 · Cited by 375 · see citing works
Taris, T. W., & Schreurs, P. J. G. (2009) · Work & Stress · doi:10.1080/02678370903072555 · Cited by 282 · see citing works
Knowledge Worker Roles and Actions—Results of Two Empirical Studies
Reinhardt, W., Schmidt, B., Sloep, P., & Drachsler, H. (2011) · Knowledge and Process Management · doi:10.1002/kpm.378 · Cited by 267 · see citing works
Measuring knowledge worker productivity: A taxonomy
Ramírez, Y. W., & Nembhard, D. A. (2004) · Journal of Intellectual Capital · doi:10.1108/14691930410567040 · Cited by 255 · see citing works
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Blau, S. (2001) · New England journal of entrepreneurship · doi:10.1108/neje-04-02-2001-b008 · Cited by 219 · see citing works
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Allen, D. E. (2001) · Cited by 211 · see citing works
The interactive effects of variety, autonomy, and feedback on attitudes and performance
Dodd, N. G., & Ganster, D. C. (1996) · Journal of Organizational Behavior · doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-1379(199607)17:4 · Cited by 184 · see citing works
Ko, M., Yang, S., Lee, J., Heizmann, C., Jeong, J., Lee, U., Shin, D., Yatani, K., Song, J., & Chung, K. (2015) · ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1145/2675133.2675244 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
Employee reactions to job characteristics: A constructive replication.
Brief, A. P., & Aldag, R. J. (1975) · Journal of Applied Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0076548 · Cited by 178 · see citing works
Semi-Automated Tracking: A Balanced Approach for Self-Monitoring Applications
Choe, E. K., Abdullah, S., Rabbi, M., Thomaz, E., Epstein, D. A., Cordeiro, F., Kay, M., Abowd, G. D., Choudhury, T., Fogarty, J. A., et al. (2017) · IEEE Pervasive Computing · doi:10.1109/mprv.2017.18 · Cited by 171 · see citing works
Self-citationEmail Duration, Batching and Self-interruption: Patterns of Email Use on Productivity and Stress
Mark, G., Iqbal, S. T., Czerwinski, M., Johns, P., Sano, A., & Lutchyn, Y. (2016) · Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858262 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Borst, J. P., Taatgen, N. A., & van Rijn, H. (2015) · Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2702123.2702156 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Choe, E. K., Lee, B., Kay, M., Pratt, W., & Kientz, J. A. (2015) · ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) · doi:10.1145/2750858.2804266 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
Self-citationHiniker, A., Hong, S.-S., Kohno, T., & Kientz, J. A. (2016) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858403 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
Bored mondays and focused afternoons
Mark, G. J., Iqbal, S. T., Czerwinski, M. P., & Johns, P. (2014) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2556288.2557204 · Cited by 142 · see citing works
Kim, Y., Jeon, J. H., Choe, E. K., Lee, B., Kim, K., & Seo, J. (2016) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858428 · Cited by 140 · see citing works
Self-citationA Diary Study on Combining Multiple Information Devices in Everyday Activities and Tasks
Jokela, T., Ojala, J., & Olsson, T. (2015) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2702123.2702211 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
Why do i keep interrupting myself?: environment, habit and self-interruption
Dabbish, L., Mark, G., & González, V. M. (2011) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1978942.1979405 · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Self-interruption on the computer
Jin, J., & Dabbish, L. (2009) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1518701.1518979 · Cited by 121 · see citing works
Kim, Y.-H., Jeon, J. H., Lee, B., Choe, E. K., & Seo, J. (2017) · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies · doi:10.1145/3130930 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Self-citationProductivity Measurement and Improvement : Organizational Case Studies
Pritchard, R. D. (1995) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Ko, M., Choi, S., Yatani, K., & Lee, U. (2016) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858568 · Cited by 111 · see citing works
The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy
Reich, R. B. (2000) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Effects of Individual Differences in Blocking Workplace Distractions
Mark, G. J., Czerwinski, M. P., & Iqbal, S. T. (2018) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3173666 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Whittaker, S., Kalnikaitė, V., Hollis, V., & Guydish, A. J. (2016) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858193 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Kim, J., Cho, C., & Lee, U. (2017) · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies · doi:10.1145/3130932 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
Personal Tracking of Screen Time on Digital Devices
Rooksby, J., Asadzadeh, P., Rost, M., Morrison, A., & Chalmers, M. (2016) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858055 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
An evaluation of office productivity measurement
Haynes, B. (2007) · Journal of Corporate Real Estate · doi:10.1108/14630010710845730 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Kim, I., Jung, G., Jung, H., Ko, M., & Lee, U. (2017) · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies · doi:10.1145/3130928 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Design Recommendations for Self-Monitoring in the Workplace: Studies in Software Development
Meyer, A. N., Murphy, G. C., Zimmermann, T., & Fritz, T. (2017) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3134714 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
A researcher's guide to running diary studies
Singh, A., & Malhotra, S. (2013) · Asia-Pacific Computer and Human Interaction · doi:10.1145/2525194.2525261 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Assessment and measurement of productivity
Clements-Croome, D., & Kaluarachchi, Y. (1999) · CRC Press eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203027813-16 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Creative Working in the Knowledge Economy
Loo, S. Y. (2016) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315453095 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Knowledge Worker Adoption of Time Management Tools: Satisfaction and Perceived Effectiveness
Wu, D., & Tremaine, M. M. (2004) · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Spaces to control creative output of the knowledge worker
Spivack, A. J., & Rubin, B. A. (2011) · iConference · doi:10.1145/1940761.1940804 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Visualising the fragmentation of knowledge work
Pammer‐Schindler, V., Edler, S., & Stern, H. (2012) · Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/2399016.2399143 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Leveraging Large Language Models to Power Chatbots for Collecting User Self-Reported Data
Wei, J., Kim, S., Jung, H., & Kim, Y.-H. (2024) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3637364 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
Self-citationKobiella, C., Flores López, Y. S., Waltenberger, F., Draxler, F., & Schmidt, A. (2024) · Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3641964 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Lee, Y., Chung, J. J. Y., Song, J. Y., Chang, M., & Kim, J. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445222 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Detecting Developers' Task Switches and Types
Meyer, A. N., Satterfield, C., Zuger, M., Kevic, K., Murphy, G. C., Zimmermann, T., & Fritz, T. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · doi:10.1109/tse.2020.2984086 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kim, Y.-H., Choe, E. K., Lee, B., & Seo, J.
- Affiliations
- Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Microsoft (United States) (US)
- Seoul National University (KR)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2019-05-02
- Pages
- 1-12
- OpenAlex
- W2941214941
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 17.03
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Seoul National University Open Repository (Seoul National University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1753452)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Personal Information Management and User Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- personal productivity, knowledge workers, productive activities, work-life boundaries, time management, attitude toward work, productivity analysis, non-work activities
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
