The problem circling sustainable productivity (that nobody's talking about)

We talk about sustainable productivity and making work at a pace that won't burn us out, but by doing so we're missing a big piece of the puzzle.

Hi,

The conversation around sustainable productivity and slow growth often emphasizes the personal benefits of aligning work with natural rhythms and patterns, such as reducing burnout, enhancing creativity, and fostering a healthier work-life balance.

Writers and content creators are encouraged to cut back, focusing on quality over quantity, and to create in ways that are more attuned to their personal energy levels and creative flow. This helps lead to a more fulfilling and sustainable creative process, where the pressure to constantly produce is replaced by a more mindful and intentional pace.

I think this is great. However, what often gets overlooked in this discussion is the impact that sustainable productivity can have on income. When you slow down and produce less, especially in industries where output is directly tied to earnings, there can be a significant reduction in revenue when you cut back.

If you drop your output from 12 books a year to 2 books a year because that’s what you can sustain, then you have to figure out how to make up that drastic reduction in revenue or you’re just going to replace burnout of one type with burnout of another type.

You can’t sustainably create content if you can’t sustainable monetize that content.

We usually talk about sustainable productivity as a function of our own work, but sustainable monetization requires thinking about our careers on a broader level. It should take all the stakeholders into account, including the ecosystem of authors, readers, and publishers, who collectively work together toward creating an environment that is mutually beneficial for all parties.

Unfortunately, the publishing industry is not set up to work that way, and neither is capitalism. It’s set up so that every person is incentivized to maximize their own needs while giving the least to the collective as possible.

This is incredibly short sighted, and why America’s infrastructure is crumbling. Collectively, we can build enough leverage into society to land on the moon. However, if we don’t all contribute a little bit, we don’t have enough to fill the potholes on main street.

In today's society, we celebrate those who amass the most wealth and resources for themselves, viewing it as a mark of success and intelligence. Individuals and businesses are praised for their shrewdness in maximizing profits, cutting costs, and leveraging every possible advantage to come out on top.

This "winner takes all" mentality glorifies self-interest and often incentivizes actions that prioritize personal or corporate gain over the broader societal good. For instance, executives who drive up stock prices by slashing jobs or outsourcing labor to cheaper markets are often rewarded with bonuses and praise, while the broader impacts on employees, communities, and economic stability are overlooked.

On the flip side, those who choose to invest in the collective good, whether through paying fair wages, contributing to social programs, or supporting environmental initiatives, are often criticized for not maximizing their profit potential. Companies that prioritize ethical practices or sustainability over short-term financial gain can be seen as naive or inefficient, and individuals who advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy or more robust social safety nets are sometimes scorned as unrealistic or anti-business.

This scorn stems from a deeply ingrained belief that the primary goal of any financial endeavor should be to extract as much value as possible for oneself, even if it means skirting ethical lines or neglecting the welfare of others.

This dynamic creates an environment where contributing to the collective good is not just undervalued but actively discouraged. Maybe, on a small scale we can build a community that looks out for each other, but once you get beyond 150 or so players, all of that collapses. I am deeply sympathetic to socialism, but I can also admit it doesn’t work on a societal level, at least not in its purest form. Neither does libertarianism, though, which is what’s left when we over-index for the needs of each individual actor.

As an individual actor, being self motivated by making the optimal decision to maximize your own needs is almost always the correct choice, especially in the short term. If you know everyone else will make the selfish choice, then game theory says the only logical move is to also do the same thing.

But to what end?

Each individual actor might not do much damage to the ecosystem by themselves, but collectively they become like a horde of economic locusts picking everything clean as they carve a path of destruction through an industry. When you think that way, you create and perpetuate an industry that offers asymmetrical upside for people who act in their own self interest at the expense of anyone else.

You might say “but I’m not talking about systemic issues. I just want to monetize my own work in a sustainable way”, and that’s great, but what happens when a customer leaves your perfectly balanced ecosystem and runs headlong into a creator who’s only interested in making the most money, even at the expense of the customer? Worse, what happens when they run into that person first? Then, they probably won’t even give your work a shot.

This is a rampant problem in the coaching space, where we are constantly trying to find people before they get jaded and indoctrinated by bad actors propped up by endless capital.

You can't build sustainability in an environment where everyone is singularly focused on leveraging their own best interest.

Whether it's overusing resources, cutting corners, or exploiting loopholes, these actions collectively contribute to a system that is fragile and prone to breakdown. When everyone is making decisions toward optimizing their own self-interest, cooperation breaks down, and the collective good suffers. Resources are depleted faster, markets become volatile, and inequality widens, leading to a cycle of instability that harms everyone in the long run.

The longer this goes on, the worse the problem gets, as more and more creators have no choice but to act in their own self interest simply to survive. True sustainability thrives on cooperation, shared responsibility, and a long-term view that balances individual and collective needs. It requires an understanding that personal success is intricately linked to the health and stability of the broader community.

When individuals recognize that their actions impact more than just themselves, they are more likely to engage in practices that support the greater good, such as conserving resources, supporting fair policies, and investing in community well-being.

By shifting the focus from short-term personal gains to sustainable practices that consider the collective impact, we create environments where stability, equity, and resilience can flourish. Without this shift, any efforts toward sustainability are undermined by the constant friction of competing self-interests pulling in different directions.

Unfortunately, thinking beyond the individual to the platform needs, or the genre, or anything is only possible if you expect everyone else to make the same decision, and that would be lunacy, right? If you decide to help the group at the expense of yourself and everyone else goes the other way, then you are left holding the bag.

That would be irresponsible to yourself and your loved ones.

When you make the best decision for you to maximize your own needs, then who cares if they are bad, or boring, or turn people off listening to them, because that's somebody else's problem.

That's the next guy's problem.

And that is intrinsically not how a society works.

Or how an ecosystem works.

Or how sustainability works.

Sustainability only truly works when you take the entire supply chain and all the stakeholders into consideration and realize every part of the process, from raw material sourcing to production, distribution, and consumption, is interconnected.

A company might boast about using eco-friendly packaging, but if the materials are sourced from suppliers who exploit labor or degrade the environment, the overall impact is still harmful. Involving all stakeholders, from suppliers to workers, consumers, and even communities, ensures that sustainability efforts are comprehensive and not just surface-level fixes.

So, how do you build sustainable monetization when at least half the industry is working actively to burn it all down at any one time and human nature amplified by capitalism pushes people toward the most selfish and thus least sustainable choice?

I don’t know the answer, but it’s not to keep making the same choices we’ve been making and hoping for different results.

That’s how we got into this stupid mess in the first place.

What do you think?

• Does slowing down feel like a risk or a relief?

• How do you balance creativity with financial needs?

• What does sustainable success look like to you?

Let us know in the comments.

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Where to go next:

When to burn it all down and how to rise from the ashes

1 - The Author Ecosystems

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