The modern workplace has changed, in fact our jobs have changed radically over the past 5 years (and almost unrecognizable from our jobs 15 years ago!), we know this, its not big news.

We’re immersed in a world of digital communication, best practices, policies and procedures that our managers measure us against. We’re immersed in a world of distractions, procrastination and things that stop us getting things done – finding the balance in this mess of land of hoops to jump through and status updates to read is effectively ‘Productivity 3.0’ – How do we remain productive in the modern workplace.

This recent video from Jason Fried of 37Signals talks about the Modern Workplace and the concept that “Work doesn’t happen at Work”.

I suggest you take 16mins to listen to it, I’m a big fan of 37Signals, their book ReWork and their Podcast – I think we can all learn from the way they work…

Jason talks about the concept of work moments and ask ‘When do you get the most done’ and that most answers fall into the category of a time (early/late) and place (study/library) or a moving object (plane/train). He talks about Meetings and Manager being the biggest distraction in the work place and that phrase “What did I get done today?”.

I think that we’re learning in this modern ‘workplace 3.0’ discussion is that the 9-5 is a thing of the past and that the traditional ‘workplace’ is under fire too…!

Is this shift one of the influencing factors behind a decade of successful startups, great independent consultants and a huge networks of small businesses that nowdays operate with flexitime/work from home and hot desking?

Productivity 3.0, Workplace 3.0 and Business 3.0 – An interesting concept based around focused driven individuals that don’t get caught up in toxic big company bureaucracy?

What do you think? Do you work independently a lot of the time? Do you work to a big business that is super productive? Google do it well and have broke that bureaucratic business 2.0 trend, right?

Maybe we should take Jason up on ‘No talk Thursday’…