Getting Real About Time Management: Are you lazy…or just random?

Productivity isn’t always as consistent as we’d like it to be.

An employee “Bill” varied his arrival time at work. When Bill was late, his boss yelled at him. When Bill was on time, the boss offered praise.

Sure enough, Bill responded. The day after the boss yelled, Bill was on time. And the day after the reward, Bill slacked off and arrived late. So, concluded the boss, praise doesn’t work. And punishment does.

There was only one problem. The data told the wrong story.

A computer demonstrated that Bill’s arrival times showed a pattern of random variation. In fact, the computer could predict quite accurately how Bill would perform — with or without praise and blame.

The same pattern seems to apply to students: some days you learn faster while other days you just don’t get it. And some days you’re productive and efficient, while other days you’re sluggish.

If you’ve studied statistics, you probably guessed that we’re talking about regression to the mean.

People usually have an average level of productivity. When they work hard one day, they…