The Day That Changed How I Measure Productivity

We do this a lot as engineers and AI builders. If a day doesn’t have heads-down focus or obvious breakthroughs, it feels like a failure. The guilt sneaks in fast, like busy work doesn’t count.

Here’s the reframe: start using an engineering productivity framework. Productivity isn’t a single, one-size-fits-all thing. It’s multi-modal. If you name your mode for the day and pick tasks that fit, even shallow momentum turns into real progress. Instead of grinding against guilt, you keep moving, and those small wins add up.

The Engineering Productivity Framework: The Six Productivity Modes That Finally Made Sense

After that rough day, sitting there with my energy scattered and my list half-cleared, I decided I needed something better than just “productive” or “not productive” to explain how I’d spent my time. What started as scribbled notes in my work journal became an engineering productivity framework—six modes, a lightweight language for myself (and honestly, for my team too), so we could stop reacting by default and start choosing how we worked, even when things got chaotic.

Mode 1 is Deep Build. Think heads-down, undistracted creation. Coding, designing, writing, and anything else requiring full concentration. It’s what most of us mean when we say “real work.” The catch is, once you cross the threshold to averaging three meetings a day, the chance of making meaningful progress drops to just 14 percent. Distraction is costly. So when your calendar’s clear, defend that space like it matters. Because it does.

Mode 2 is Unblocker. It’s about clearing paths for others. Answering threads, sending approvals, firing off updates, making those quick decisions that let someone else move forward. Sometimes the fastest way to deliver value isn’t building, it’s getting out of the way. If you’re the person standing between someone and their next step, two minutes now saves a whole day later.

Mode 3 is Maintenance/Cleanup. This one’s my least favorite, but I’ll acknowledge it. Paperwork, scanning contracts, clearing inboxes, booking meetings, fixing those little things that pile up in the background. Not glamorous—most days it feels like shoveling snow—but clearing friction here actually sets up flow for the rest of the week. Some afternoons are just meant for this, and that’s fine.

There was a week last fall where I kept delaying booking my flu shot. It lived on my to-do list for twelve days. On the thirteenth, I finally slotted Maintenance mode for a couple hours, blitzed through five random life admin tasks, and somehow that fifteen-minute errand felt more satisfying than half the features I’d pushed all month. I still haven’t figured out why those tiny tasks balloon in my head for so long, but booking one block to wrestle them down helps.

Mode 4 is Systems/Improvement. Here’s where you invest in processes, automation, or paying down tech debt. It’s not about how long you spend on it. It’s about leverage. Fix a flaky deployment script, tighten a workflow, automate a repeat task, and every future you benefits. The difference is, work here compounds. A little now saves a lot later. Sometimes reframing maintenance as improvement keeps your energy up, because you know you’re building capacity even if today’s gains are invisible.

Mode 5 is Learning/Exploration. Don’t underestimate this one. Researching a new framework, thinking through architecture problems, or even taking a walk to chew on a gnarly issue is real work. You’re not slacking—you’re preparing for your next sprint, and future you will thank you if you protect this time. There are afternoons where getting your mind moving matters more than moving tasks on a board.

Mode 6 is Relationship/Coordination. 1:1s, stakeholder syncs, those trust-building conversations that keep projects from derailing. Calls aren’t just interruptions—they’re alignment builders. Checking in and making sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction is its own kind of output.

I keep these engineering productivity modes in front of me, especially on the days where my calendar is a mess or my focus is nowhere to be found. If you pick a mode and build your day around it, it’s easier to explain your progress (and feel good about it), even when it looks nothing like the “perfect” day you imagined. Whatever kind of work you’re in, odds are, these modes will help you name where you’re at—and shift gears with purpose, not guilt.

How to Choose and Commit to Your Daily Productivity Mode

Start every morning with a quick scan of yourself and your calendar. Am I coming in sharp and clear, or foggy and a bit slowed down? Is today wide open or already boxed in by meetings? And what’s the single outcome I most need to push forward right now? I’ve learned to ask myself, “Am I a scalpel or a broom today?”—am I here to do one thing with precision, or clear out the mess so tomorrow’s easier? In fact, using a structured planning approach like MCII can drive small to medium improvements in outcomes. A nudge toward intentionality that compounds. (source) This check-in sounds basic, but it shapes everything that follows.

Once you’ve settled on a mode, line up a handful of tasks (never your whole backlog). Align tasks to energy by stacking three to five that match what you’ve got in the tank and the type of work today calls for.

For example, if you pick Maintenance/Cleanup, you’re probably queuing up clearing inboxes, closing out old JIRA tickets, and prepping paperwork, not tinkering with that gnarly refactor. On a Deep Build day, only add the coding work and block off distractions. Move approvals or meeting requests to tomorrow. Unblocker mode? Load up the requests waiting on you—respond to teammates, green-light reviews, reset stuck dependencies—but resist the urge to just squeeze in a code review unless it helps someone else move. This isn’t just about productivity theater. It’s about being honest with yourself (and your team) about what’s realistic today and deferring everything else until the mode, or the energy, fits better.

There’s one step most people skip: show your work mode. Set your status (Slack, Teams, whatever you use), update your calendar description, or even drop a line in your team chat. “Heads-down build mode” or “Unblocking requests this morning.” This tiny broadcast helps everyone know what you’re optimizing for, and cuts down on mismatched expectations.

Honestly, it’s like shifting gears on a bike. Some days you’re coasting on flat ground (Deep Build). Other days, you’re climbing hills (Maintenance or Relationship). The trick isn’t muscling through in the wrong gear. That’s how you burn out or stall out. I used to grind uphill in the wrong gear and call it “discipline,” but all it did was waste my energy and sap my progress. Each mode can move you forward if it fits the hill in front of you. Your job is to check the terrain, pick the right gear, and ride it all the way through the day.

And truthfully, I still catch myself fighting the wrong hill sometimes. The urge to stack deep work on top of cleanup, or schedule five modes in one morning, is strong, especially when I’m feeling behind. I haven’t really cracked that instinct yet.

Orchestrating Your Week: Layer, Don’t Stack

Here’s how mine played out recently. Monday was a Deep Build day—three hours blocked for a new service, nothing else. Tuesday morning, I carved out a Relationship slot for 1:1s and some calls (alignment, handoffs, clearing up vague tickets). Wednesday afternoon shifted to Maintenance.

Clearing out tech debt, automating a recurring export, chasing paperwork and overdue JIRA tickets. Thursday, I slotted Systems/Improvement into a two-hour window. Revisited our flaky CI script, and actually got a working fix in, which should save fifteen minutes per deploy. Finally, I kept one floating Unblocker slot on Friday and handled a last-minute access request and unjammed a stuck peer review. The tasks changed, but modes anchored my week. I wasn’t scrambling, just showing up in the right way at each point.

A lot of people hear this and worry that engineering productivity strategies are just extra overhead. I’m with you—anything that takes longer than five minutes isn’t happening on my messy mornings. But here, the switch is fast: pick your mode, plan a handful of tasks. Back when I was scrambling just to keep afloat, my “planning” was opening up every tab I’d touched in the past week and hoping that one of them had some magic next step written down. It never did. Pairing your day to a single mode actually cuts back on context switching, and the minutes you save don’t just add up, they compound. You give your brain a break from the chaos.

Another concern I hear—does talking about deep work alternatives just legitimize shallow work, or risk getting out of sync with your team? Intention beats impulse. If you share your mode and the outcomes in real time, you keep alignment high and expectations clear. And let’s be honest, you can’t always run at 110 percent. What matters is making that visible and sustainable, for yourself and the people you work with.

Your Next Steps: Turn Modes Into Momentum

Pick one mode for today, jot down three to five tasks that fit, update your Slack or Teams status, block out time on your calendar— even just a half hour— and defend that focus window like you mean it. Start small and start now.

Track your actual outcomes. Did you ship a new artifact, clear a blocker, or launch a small improvement? Log the results by mode, and at week’s end, take ten minutes for a quick retro. Tune your mix based on what moved you forward, or where friction stuck. Updates get cleaner when you know which mode delivered which value.

Back at the top, I mentioned finishing four things and still feeling behind. These days, I try to name the mode first, trust that I can be productive without deep work, and let momentum (not guilt) carry me. Some days I still slip up, but picking the mode resets my frame. You can try it, too.