Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal: Rethinking Productivity Through a Farmer's Lens

Welcome to the 12th edition of Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal.

Table of Contents

• Jess’ Monthly Reflection

• Productivity by design

• The changing context of productivity

• Productivity for coherence

Jess’ Monthly Reflection

I can’t believe the Moonlit Minds Journal has made it to a year. Thank you to everyone who was there in the beginning and patiently watched it evolve into what it has become. Thanks also to everyone who has provided encouragement and suggestions along the way!

This edition is a little different because it involves a special co-author.

At the start of 2024, I asked my Poppy (Grandfather) about his favourite part of farm life. After a long pause, he replied, “The tractors”. When he passed away in July 2024, at the age of 93 and a half (the half was very important), I was given the honour of typing up the eulogy he wrote. He did this because he didn’t want us to forget the important parts of his life.

Of the four pages, two were about the technological evolution of the farming equipment he used over the 70+ years he spent on the farm. Sadly, this detailed technological evolution didn’t make the final cut of the eulogy. However, it piqued my curiosity as I found a new appreciation for how farmers think about productivity.

This edition of Moonlit Minds is a reflection on this perspective. An opportunity to honour an important part of Poppy’s life, consider how our perspective of productivity differs and reflect on the actual role of productivity at work.

As always, we’ll explore this through three lenses: the historical context, opportunities for today and how we can create new paradigms for tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed Friday’s Buck Moon,

Jess Price

Founder & Chief Vision Officer

EXPLORING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

^{Research Approach: This synthesis was developed using AI-assisted research to access and distil credible historical and contemporary sources rapidly. All insights were cross-checked, and sources are referenced throughout.}

Productivity by design

Today, productivity has become essential at work. If we can find a quantitative way to measure something, we will, whether it’s widgets per hour or tasks completed per day. Productivity acts as a mirror of what we value, who we centre and what we believe work is for. It’s as much about design as it is economics, yet we rarely focus on the design of productivity. Productivity, as we know it, is all about extraction. But it wasn’t always that way. When intentional, productivity can become a form of care, contribution and dignity.

Pre-Industrial (before 1760)

Before factories and the word productivity existed, work followed the rhythm of the land, guided by seasons, spiritual calendars and communal need. Your role was fixed by birth, and you worked the land your parents did, within the class you were born into. Tools like ploughs, looms, and scythes existed to sustain life, not grow surplus or chase efficiency. Productivity didn’t exist, but since the 1610’s the word productive referred to serving to produce. Most people worked hard, silently and without recognition. It was considered sacred, but offered no autonomy. And while work looks different today, the belief that hard labour equals moral worth still lingers in our systems.

_{Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2022, Jan 11). Work and labor. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Thompson, E. P. (1967). Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism. Past & Present, (38), 56–97.}

First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)

Productivity became a measurable goal in 1809, described as the quality of being productive. Time shifted from being seasonal to mechanical, tracked by factory bells and clock towers. Roles fractured from tradition as workers became wage earners under a new industrial order. Steam engines, looms, and furnaces turned human effort into output and profit. Adam Smith's division of labour took root, setting in motion a worldview that treated workers as interchangeable parts in a grand machine. To be productive was to keep pace with the machine. Work became exhausting and alienating, with virtue redefined as output per hour. And though the machines are smarter now, our obsession with time as money still governs the way we work.

_{Sources: Raferty J.P. (2025, June 13). The rise of the machines: Pros and cons of the industrial revolution. Britannica. Econlib. (n.d.). Division of labor and specialization. Econlib. Thompson, E. P. (1967). Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism. Past & Present, (38), 56–97.}

Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914)

The second industrial wave of steel, electricity and oil expanded the scale and scope of productivity. It also brought us the concept of an international standard timezone and a universal day beginning at midnight in 1884. Fredrick Taylor’s scientific method redesigned work as a science to be studied, optimised and controlled. The pace of work was set by stopwatches and quotas, not human capacity. Workers were slotted into narrower roles, reducing their agency to executing single tasks. Electricity, assembly lines, and internal combustion engines scaled production beyond imagination. Bigger was better, control was king and deference to technocratic management was the default. Human dignity was traded for monotony; compliance was rewarded and creativity ignored. And though few still punch clocks, we continue to treat efficiency as the highest virtue, even at the expense of people.

_{Sources: History.com Editors. (2009, November 13). Ford’s assembly line starts rolling. HISTORY. Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. Harper & Brothers.}

Meanwhile, on the farm…

Amidst the broader forces of Taylor’s scientific method of productivity and the growth-at-all-costs mindset, the daily rhythms of farm life followed a different path. As Poppy recalled:

The first Lanz Bulldog tractor came to our district in 1936, and Dad bought ours in January 1939. I was 8 at the time and would hurry home from school, change my clothes, and drive the tractor while Dad milked the cows and fed the pigs. During harvest time, I would stay home from school to drive the tractor.

We would cart the wheat with the Bulldog pulling a shearer wagon that carried about 100 bags. The wagon tray was about 5 feet high, used a bag loader and was pulled by a horse. The tractors only travelled 4 ¼ miles [6.84 kilometres] an hour, with the wagons built for the speed of a draught horse. We would leave at about 7 am each morning and travel two hours to the rail station. We would come home and take a second load in the afternoon. After eight hours of travel, we would load up the wagon for the next day.

The days were long and hard, but I still enjoyed it.

In the early 1940’s we had an old truck chassis made into trailers, allowing us to carry about 120 bags. The gearbox in the Bulldog was also modified, allowing us to increase our speed to 12 miles (19.31 kilometres) an hour, meaning we could get 3 or 4 loads per day.

We also introduced a Power Take-Off (PTO) shaft. We still had to hand-sow the bags to keep grain from spilling while being loaded. The grain was taken to the silos where we would cut the strings to pour the grain into the hopper. We continued to do this for a few years until we got our first truck in about 1948. It was a 4-tonne Commer, which carried 65 bags.

A 1950 purchase of a 12-foot [3.66 meters] header with a two-wheel trailer fastened to the side, and a built-in auger allowed us to transfer 100 bags of cut grain to the silo in 4 minutes. There were also huge changes in sowing a crop. A 15-hoe combine that covered a width of 8.75 feet [2.67 meters], with the Bulldog tractor travelling at 4.2 miles [6.76 kilometres] per hour, covered 3 acres an hour and took 10 hours to sow 30 acres.

For Poppy, productivity represented a form of care, contribution and dignity. Each new technological advancement allowed him to do more in less time, with a 50x increase in productivity by the average manual worker between 1870 - 1970 (Simmons, 2023).

Third Industrial Revolution (1970-2006) 

Productivity shifted from bodies to brains as information became the new engine of work. Time blurred across time zones, with pagers, emails and spreadsheets replacing punch cards. The new elite were knowledge workers, while others were told to upskill or disappear. Productivity tools proliferated, with a promise of more freedom and efficiency. Yet the reality was often more pressure, fragmentation and 24/7 availability.

Meanwhile, for farmers like Poppy, this revolution was life-changing:

“The 1970s saw an increase in productivity when trucks were fitted with a hydraulic hoist and tipping action to deliver out the back of the truck bin. This process was much faster. We used more up-to-date PTO headers over these years, with machines going from 10 feet [3 meters] front to 12 feet [3.66 meters], then 14 and 16 feet [4.27 - 4.88 meters] cab. These later machines also contained large boxes with built-in augers. In 1982, we bought our first self-propelled machine with a 24-foot [7.32 meters] front, a box capacity of 60 bags with a self-unloading auger. This was a huge step up in the area harvested each day. Air-conditioned cabins and radio also increased operators' comfort.

For farmers, between 1993 and 2004, farming technological innovation resulted in a 46% productivity (Krook, 2017). For knowledge workers, mainframes, office software, and automation promised speed but delivered overload. Tech was seen as neutral, and hierarchy flattened in name but not in power. Hustle became heroic, and the concept of burnout became background noise from 1974. Today, we continue to mistake responsiveness for productivity and busyness for value.

_{Sources: Mohajan, Haradhan. (2021). Third Industrial Revolution Brings Global Development. 7. 239-251. Blinder, A. S. (2000, June). The internet and the new economy. Brookings Institution.}

Fourth Industrial Revolution (2011-now) 

The early 2010s demonstrated that productivity could be platformed and scaled through the code on our devices. By 2017, computing power had increased office productivity by 84%, allowing a full 1970s workday to be completed in 1.5 hours (Krook, 2017). Workers became users and data points, gigs replaced jobs and flexibility replaced stability. Algorithms, AI and smartphones optimise tasks at the cost of attention, privacy and agency. Disruption was glorified, surveillance normalised, and growth remained the goal. Workers were told they were free, but still tethered to metrics and machines. And the World Health Organisation officially recognised burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Today, even as we begin to rebel, many still believe faster is better and more is progress.

_{Sources: Schwab, K. (2016). The fourth industrial revolution. World Economic Forum.}

What this reveals 

Across every revolution, one thread persists. Productivity is never just technical. It reflects what, and who, we consider valuable, encoding our fears, aspirations and defaults. While farmers continue to work with life’s natural rhythms, in knowledge work, we continue to work against them. Productivity technically is serving to produce, yet what are we producing?

For knowledge workers, it’s no longer about being productive to sustain life. Instead, it’s about disconnection and constantly doing more to increase company profit. But what if a different approach is possible? One where productivity is embedded in what truly matters. Where care is not a pause from productivity, but its highest form. Where how to be more productive is replaced by intentional considerations as to productive, for what, who, and at what cost.

IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK TODAY

The changing context of productivity

The productivity systems we operate within today, including time tracking, performance reviews and hustle metrics, weren’t inevitable. They were designed in eras of factories, assembly lines and mass output. Today, their architecture remains even as the context has changed.

Poppy’s experience highlights the stark contrast between how farmers and knowledge workers think of productivity. For both, the technological possibilities have never been greater, yet the emotional tone of work remains fractured. When Poppy thought about how productivity increased during his 70 years on the farm, it was with wonder and excitement. His eulogy concluded: “Still today, one could never have imagined things could or would change so much.” For us, productivity means burnout, disillusionment and disconnection. These aren’t random symptoms. They are residual signs. Productivity is no longer fit for the reality it’s meant to serve.

Many of our productivity patterns trace directly to earlier industrial logics. We:

• still measure productivity by volume, not value;

• reward availability over discernment;

• equate activity with importance;

• view rest as recovery from work, rather than part of work; and

• treat time as a resource to spend, not a rhythm to inhabit.

These defaults are so embedded that they feel natural, yet they are silently highlighting the cracks in our current systems as we:

• say “outcomes over outputs”, but still ask for status updates over substance;

• promote wellbeing, yet track hours and physical presence;

• encourage innovation, but punish divergence;

• pass ‘right to disconnect’ laws, while still glorifying 24/7 hustle; and

• crave purpose, but define success by efficiency.

The systems aren’t broken, they’re working exactly as they were designed to. But the world has changed, and our perception of productivity is forcing us to confront this reality.

This tension is also showing up in how companies and governments speak about productivity. For farmers, the definition remains grounded and purposeful: "a ratio of outputs produced (such as crops, livestock and wool) to inputs used (such as land, labour, capital, materials and services)."

Here, productivity is tangible, yields and effort, care and stewardship, all in relation. But for knowledge work, the definition is less clear. What counts as input when your labour is thinking? What’s the output of emotional labour, strategy, or creativity?

Often, what gets measured is simply what’s visible: hours online, tasks closed, meetings attended. And the result is a growing dissonance. People feel productive and depleted at the same time. We feel guilty for resting and are constantly looking to optimise our lives.

So what can we do now, as we stand on the edge of the next industrial revolution?

Here are three small steps we can all take in our day-to-day work:

1. In your next team meeting, ask: “What does ‘productive’ actually mean in this context?"

2. Swap the question “What did you get done?” with “What felt meaningful to move forward?”

3. Try a 90-minute ‘deep work block’ without interruptions and reflect on what changes in focus and fulfilment.

Rethinking what productivity means in our specific contexts allows us to change how we work and reclaim what we believe work is for. Because maybe productivity was never about doing more. Maybe, it’s always been a question of what matters and whether our systems reflect that.

CREATING A NEW WORK PARADIGM FOR TOMORROW

Productivity for coherence

For over two centuries, productivity has been designed around control of time, output and human behaviour. It was born in the logic of factories, scaled through bureaucracies, and digitised into dashboards. The system’s aim was consistency, efficiency and growth.

But what if we designed from coherence instead?

What if productivity weren’t about how much we do, but how well what we do aligns with what matters? What if it became a mirror of purpose, not pace? A rhythm of relational contribution rather than a race against time?

The future isn’t about rejecting productivity. It’s about reframing from:

• productivity as performance, rooted in extraction, speed and individualism; to

• productivity as coherence, rooted in care, rhythm and collective value.

Here's what I've come up with through Paradigm Makers’ 5 Essential Elements:

People: From output units to coherence stewards

Under the old logic, people were seen as production mechanisms. Task-doers whose value was determined by measurable outputs, like hours worked or projects delivered. In the new paradigm, people are recognised as relational systems capable of nurturing coherence, purpose and transformation. As AI and automation replace repetitive work, what remains essential is the human capacity to sense, connect, and make meaning. This reframing invites us to design work environments that support true presence (over physical presence), integrity and trust. Roles evolve into relational stewards who shape culture and coherence across contexts.

Innovation: From efficiency race to resonant response

Historically, innovation was seen as a competitive pursuit to produce faster, cheaper and bigger. It served market cycles, often at the expense of context and consequence. In the new system logic, innovation becomes a form of ethical response attuned to the network of relationships it affects and long-term ecological and societal effects. This repositions innovation as a slow, intentional act of care and sensemaking. As generative tools scale, human innovation shifts toward asking better questions, creativity and prototyping futures worth inhabiting. Structures are reimagined to prioritise feedback loops, community-rooted experimentation, and time horizons aligned with regeneration.

Technology: From throughput accelerator to coherence amplifier

Under the old logic, technology was applied to increase speed, control and visibility, often reinforcing extraction and surveillance. In the emerging paradigm, technology is a medium for coherence, enabling distributed awareness, insight and connection. As tools become more embedded and intelligent, their value lies not in automation alone, but in how well they allow us to attune to natural rhythms. We intentionally centre new technology around the augmentation of discernment, integrity of coordination and shared meaning. Instead of optimising dashboards, new instruments are designed for mutual understanding.

Economics: From output maximisation to relational value

The dominant economic frame links productivity to output ratios and growth imperatives. This narrow definition ignores care, regeneration and collective wellbeing. In the future paradigm, productivity is redesigned to honour interdependence and ecological thresholds. The economy becomes a space where value flows from contribution to shared flourishing. Productivity dividends are shared as wellbeing, not hoarded as surplus. Compensation and recognition systems reward care, long-term thinking and ecosystem stewardship.

Norms: From move fast to move slow

Traditional productivity norms celebrate speed, sacrifice, and omnipresence. Burnout is normalised, rest is treated as recovery, and availability signals commitment. In the redesigned paradigm, norms shift toward intentionality, spaciousness, and deep engagement. Rhythm becomes a design principle, not a constraint. As people reject performative busyness, cultures emerge where discernment, spaciousness and true presence are celebrated. New norms elevate coherence and wellbeing over cadence and urgency, transforming how teams operate.

If this is the world you want to live in, here are five small entry points to try at work:

1. Ask yourself, “What rhythms do you honour, and which ones do you override?”

2. Design a day that moves at the speed of coherence, not urgency.

3. Start a conversation with your team by asking, “When have you felt most meaningfully productive?”

4. Read a book challenging your current perception of productivity, like Cal Newport’s Deep Work or Slow Productivity.

5. Create a new norm or ritual that centres care as a productive contribution.

DESIGN WHAT COMES NEXT

What do you value?

Productivity has always mirrored what we value, whether we realised it or not. For centuries, we’ve measured productivity by pace and output. But we now know that what matters most can’t be clocked or ticked. It must be felt, chosen and designed. Our agency lies in reimagining not just how we work, but what we believe work is for.

In the paradigm Paradigm Makers are building, productivity is defined as the ‘systemic capacity to generate value that uplifts, regenerates and deepens relational coherence.’ This definition, inspired in part by Poppy’s experience with productivity, removes the reliance on outdated logic. It allows me to intentionally think about why productivity matters and the impact I want Paradigm Makers to leave on the world.

As I was writing this edition, I asked my Nannie (Grandmother) if, as technology improved, Poppy came home any earlier. Her answer was perfect: “Sometimes, but most of the time he’d pop into the neighbours’ on the way home for a cup of tea and a chat.” 

How do you think we should define productivity?