The efficiency trap

In a culture obsessed with productivity, we rarely ask what we’re sacrificing for speed.

When I became a mother, I closed my office door. Not dramatically—no manifesto, no announcement. I just needed to get more work done in less time, and open doors invite conversations that consume minutes I no longer had. Before my daughter was born, I was a tenure-track business school professor who kept that door ajar as a matter of professional faith. Hallway talk is where ideas happen, where goodwill accumulates, where careers get built. After she arrived, with daycare pickup hardwired into my schedule, I became a practitioner of what I would later hear a research participant describe as “ruthless efficiency.” I had no time to waste. No time to be nice, craft perfect emails, or linger in conversations. I had work to produce and a finite window in which to produce it.