Sam Altman on Productivity: Where he is right. and where he is wrong.
Key Takeaways:
Skills don’t accumulate interest while you sleep—deep work fuels breakthroughs, not daily gains.
Incubation beats over‑execution. When your idea ripens, that’s when deep work begins.
Direction beats speed—choose the right problem before sprinting.
Protect your cognitive prime time like sacred real estate.
Tailor your task-management system to your real constraints.
Become a master of social capital—say “no” with wisdom.
In 2018, months before transforming OpenAI from a struggling nonprofit to an AI powerhouse, Sam Altman published a simple blog post titled "Productivity." It is illuminating and incomplete.
The Compound Productivity Myth
Sam Altman writes:
"Compound growth gets discussed as a financial concept, but it works in careers as well, and it is magic. A small productivity gain, compounded over 50 years, is worth a lot. So it's worth figuring out how to optimize productivity. If you get 10% more done and 1% better every day compared to someone else, the compounded difference is massive."
This formula sounds mathematically irrefutable. But productivity is not a savings account. Skills don't accumulate interest while you sleep.
When we look at history's most transformative figures—from Newton to Curie—we see a different pattern. Newton didn't develop calculus through daily 1% improvements. He cycled through periods of intense work, apparent idleness, and sudden breakthroughs. Excellence isn't manufactured through efficiency hacks but forged through deep engagement with meaningful problems.
The danger in Altman's compound productivity model isn't just that it's inaccurate—it's that it leads to "productivity theater." We optimize email response times, color-code our calendars, and multitask our way through meetings while producing nothing of lasting value. Ten percent more tasks completed means nothing if none will matter in five years.
The Direction vs. Speed Paradox
Where Altman's insight shines brightest is this:
"It doesn't matter how fast you move if it's in a worthless direction. Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored. So think about it more!"
This principle cuts through our cultural obsession with busyness. You can optimize a worthless process perfectly and still produce nothing of value. A slower journey in the right direction beats a sprint toward nowhere.
Altman recommends purposeful reflection:
"I make sure to leave enough time in my schedule to think about what to work on. The best ways for me to do this are reading books, hanging out with interesting people, and spending time in nature."
I am not saying that taking a walk is the great secret to productivity. But think more. Read more. Talk to people who confuse you. The most productive action is often not to act at all. Let problems and ideas incubate until the right path reveals itself. I have seen too many times how teams rush into solution finding without even knowing what exactly the question is.
This advice transcends position and privilege. Whether you're a CEO or an entry-level employee, direction matters more than speed. The returns on choosing the right problem dwarf the returns on solving the wrong problem efficiently.
Rushing toward execution is productivity's false prophet. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is wait until the right path becomes clear.
The Context-Specific Systems Paradox
Altman champions radical simplicity in managing tasks:
"I highly recommend using lists. I make lists of what I want to accomplish each year, each month, and each day. Lists are very focusing, and they help me with multitasking because I don't have to keep as much in my head."
He explicitly rejects complexity:
"I don't bother with categorization or trying to size task or anything like that (the most I do is put a star next to really important items)."
This minimalism works brilliantly—if you're Sam Altman. But productivity systems aren't one-size-fits-all; they're context-dependent. The professor with committee assignments, the middle manager with executive demands, and the parent balancing family obligations all face constraints Altman doesn't.
For those with numerous unignorable demands, a more structured approach isn't productivity fetishism but practical necessity. The small stuff—emails requiring responses, forms needing signatures, deadlines approaching—will colonize your mental bandwidth if not properly managed.
Where Sam is right is here: Do not use your brain as a task storage device or a calendar. External systems—whether simple lists or more complex frameworks—free up cognitive resources for the work that matters.
The Power Paradox of Saying No
Altman doesn't mince words about rejection:
"I try to be ruthless about saying no to stuff, and doing non-critical things in the quickest way possible. I probably take this too far—for example, I am almost sure I am terse to the point of rudeness when replying to emails. I generally try to avoid meetings and conferences as I find the time cost to be huge."
This ruthlessness contradicts our desire to be helpful, accessible, and accommodating. The choreography of corporate diplomacy—those unwritten rules of reciprocal favors and strategic visibility—often makes rejection feel impossible. We attend the optional meeting to avoid political fallout. We join the committee because "it's your turn." We volunteer for the project that won't advance our goals but might please a key stakeholder.
The power to ignore is a privilege only people like Sam have. True story: When I wanted to skip some weekly management meetings because my expertise could not add value to the topics on the agenda, my boss told me "In your position, to sit in these meetings is part of your job." So I went. In the corporate theatre we also build social capital and follow etiquette.
Yet we're humans, not productivity algorithms. The colleague who needs help with a presentation, the mentee seeking guidance, the team member struggling with a problem—these "distractions" are also the fabric of meaningful work lives. Sometimes our greatest contributions happen in these unscheduled moments of connection.
Every "yes" costs more than you think. When you agree to a meeting, you're spending more than the hour blocked on your calendar. You're paying in context switching, preparation time, and depleted cognitive resources that might have gone toward deeper work.
The art lies in distinguishing between work that merely signals busyness and the human connections that, while unscheduled or "unnecessary," might matter deeply. Elimination before optimization—subtract before you add, but do so with wisdom about what truly matters beyond your task list.
The Cognitive Prime Time Universal
One area where Altman's advice proves universally applicable concerns protecting specific hours:
"I have different times of day I try to use for different kinds of work. The first few hours of the morning are definitely my most productive time of the day, so I don't let anyone schedule anything then. I try to do meetings in the afternoon."
This aligns perfectly with research on cognitive performance. For most people, the morning offers peak mental capacity for deep, focused work. Yet how many of us sacrifice these golden hours to email, meetings, or administrative busywork?
Even small calendar adjustments yield outsized returns. I've encountered executives who initially feared protecting morning hours would make them less effective leaders, only to discover it made them demonstrably better at their jobs.
If you protect nothing else, guard your cognitive prime time like sacred real estate. The quality of work done during these hours can exceed everything else combined.
Beyond Productivity Porn
Altman concludes with a warning that resonates deeply:
"Don't fall into the trap of productivity porn—chasing productivity for its own sake isn't helpful. Many people spend too much time thinking about how to perfectly optimize their system, and not nearly enough asking if they're working on the right problems. It doesn't matter what system you use or if you squeeze out every second if you're working on the wrong thing."
This gets to the heart of modern productivity's emptiness. We've created an entire ecosystem—apps, books, courses, coaches—around optimization while neglecting the fundamental question: "Is this worth doing at all?"
The productivity industrial complex sells process improvement when what we need is purpose clarification. No browser extension, no six-in-the-morning coaching session, no note-taking system will save you if you haven't chosen the right mountain to climb.
Finding Your Path
What can we practically apply from this analysis?
Banish the compound myth. Progress in meaningful work isn't linear or exponential—it's messy, discontinuous, and often slow before breakthrough. Don't confuse activity with achievement or motion with progress.
Prioritize direction. Spend more time determining what deserves your attention than optimizing how quickly you complete tasks. The returns on choosing the right problem dwarf the returns on solving the wrong problem efficiently.
Match systems to constraints. Your productivity system should reflect your actual circumstances, not an idealized fantasy of autonomy. If you face numerous unignorable demands, a more structured approach to task management isn't overengineering—it's necessary infrastructure.
Guard cognitive prime time. Protect your peak cognitive hours ruthlessly. Even in the most constrained environment, guard your best thinking time for your most important work. The difference between mediocre and extraordinary often lies in how you allocate your mental prime time.
Invest in social capital. Learn which connections spur exponential returns. Not all relationship-building activities are productivity taxes. Some collaborative moments create exponential returns through trust, insight, and unexpected connections. Productivity wisdom means knowing which social investments yield returns beyond what your solo focus ever could.
Question purpose, not just process. Remember that productivity is means, not end. As Altman wisely notes, obsessing over systems while neglecting purpose misses the point entirely. The most elegantly designed productivity workflow is worthless if applied to meaningless work.
In a world obsessed with doing more, the contrarian truth endures: true productivity is doing fewer things better—and ensuring those things actually matter. What deserves your finite attention today? Sam Altman is right about that.