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Understanding Personal Productivity: How Knowledge Workers Define, Evaluate, and Reflect on Their Productivity

Authors:

Eun Kyoung Choe,

Jinwook SeoAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Paper No.: 615, Pages 1 - 12

https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300845

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

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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.

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Cited By

Kim HLee B(2024)Investigating Work Companion Robot Interactions to Enhance Work-from-Home Productivity and ExperienceArchives of Design Research10.15187/adr.2024.08.37.4.4337:4(43-63)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2024
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Lee JLee SChoe E(2024)GoalTrack: Supporting Personalized Goal-Setting in Stroke Rehabilitation with Multimodal Activity JournalingProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36997238:4(1-29)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3699723
Coutinho MMarques LSantos ADahia MFrança Cde Souza Santos RAdams BZimmermann TOzkaya ILin DZhang J(2024)The Role of Generative AI in Software Development Productivity: A Pilot Case StudyProceedings of the 1st ACM International Conference on AI-Powered Software10.1145/3664646.3664773(131-138)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2024
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Index Terms

Understanding Personal Productivity: How Knowledge Workers Define, Evaluate, and Reflect on Their Productivity
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2019

9077 pages

ISBN:9781450359702

DOI:10.1145/3290605

General Chairs:
Stephen Brewster
University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
,
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
TU Wien, Austria
,
Program Chairs:
Anna Cox
University College London, UK
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Vassilis Kostakos
University of Melbourne, Australia

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Published: 02 May 2019

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.15187/adr.2024.08.37.4.43
Lee JLee SChoe E(2024)GoalTrack: Supporting Personalized Goal-Setting in Stroke Rehabilitation with Multimodal Activity JournalingProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36997238:4(1-29)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3699723
Coutinho MMarques LSantos ADahia MFrança Cde Souza Santos RAdams BZimmermann TOzkaya ILin DZhang J(2024)The Role of Generative AI in Software Development Productivity: A Pilot Case StudyProceedings of the 1st ACM International Conference on AI-Powered Software10.1145/3664646.3664773(131-138)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3664646.3664773
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Ferguson SMassimi M(2024)Circle Back Next Week: The Effect of Meeting-Free Weeks on Distributed Workers’ Unstructured Time and Attention NegotiationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642175(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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