Is It a Productivity Tool?

There was an interesting conversation amongst some of our users about whether or not the Light Phone II was a “productivity tool”.

We think it depends how you define “productivity”.

If productivity to you or your line of work means blasting off emails all day and night on the go, checking/posting/replying to social media regularly, collaborating over text, or some form of constant availability, scheduling & moving around, then the Light Phone II is probably not a productivity tool compared to a smartphone. You can’t take advantage of a 30 second elevator ride to send an email on a Light Phone.

With a smartphone you can do a seemingly infinite variety of tasks, but that’s also part its problem when it comes to productivity.

If you consider productivity to instead be about getting hours of serious focus on a single task, the smartphone then starts to seem like a huge distraction. Cal Newport wonderfully defines this type of focus as “deep work” and goes on to describe it as, “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” If you are trying to fully engage with an idea or problem at hand, then the Light Phone II, seems like a logical productivity tool. It’s not what the device itself does that lends it to being a good companion for deep work and productivity, but precisely what the phone does not do.

Why is this idea of seriously focused work important today?

“The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive… What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore — plays in defining the quality of our life.”
― Cal Newport

Often times the smartphone gives us the illusion of productivity in a form of glorified procrastination known as multitasking. It’s easy to avoid admitting we are procrastinating by doing other petty tasks, albeit often not actually what we should or need to be doing.

What we mean to say is that, multitasking, especially as we know it on our smartphones, is just a fragmentation of little sporadic tasks and thoughts. It’s exhausting and it can have damaging side effects to our attention span, and the general quality of the work we are able to produce.

It’s not to say that by going light you have to now focus on being more productive. In fact, often times users are going light to get away from work, to relax and enjoy slowing down. The interesting that happens though, is that when you give yourself that genuine break, and don’t fill every waking second with constant smartphone stimulation, you come back to the work rejunivated and consequently more productive.

Getting things done is always a matter of one’s will power to do so. It is totally possible to be efficient and productive without going light, but it’s also very easy to fool ourselves with the guise of multitasking.