Written on 5/09/2008 by Marelisa Fabrega, Founder and CEO of marelisa-online.com and blogger at Abundance Blog.

Productivity usually refers to the amount of output produced relative to the amount of resources that go into the production, where the output is within a pre-determined parameter of quality. In the quest for increased productivity, solutions have been found that cover the gamut from automation and the creation of standard operating procedures, to providing ergonomic chairs for employees and raising the workplace temperature.

Books with titles such as Getting Things Done and others in the genre are constantly on the best sellers list. In addition, several blogs have been created with the express purpose of helping readers become more productive by hacking their lives, with advice such as: get up early; declutter your workspace; don’t go to meetings unless it’s indispensable that you be there, a meeting agenda has been prepared, and a moderator will be there to make sure that everyone sticks to the agenda; skim through reading material and delete e-mails ruthlessly; and so on.

Although pursuing productivity is laudable, more and more of what the world needs is not so much increased output, but ideas to solve complex problems. The problems being created by a population that is increasing exponentially and an environment that is on the verge of collapsing can only be solved by ingenuity, not by productivity. That is, the world doesn’t need productivity gurus as much as it needs alchemists.

Out With the Productivity Guru, In With the Alchemist
In the book, Unlimited Wealth, the brilliant economist Paul Zane Pilzer explains that for the past four hundred years virtually all economists have agreed on the notion of scarcity. That is, a society's wealth is determined by its supply of physical resources--its land, labor, minerals, water, and so on—and, as we know, these are finite resources. Pilzer goes on to argue that with today’s technology we now effectively live in a world of unlimited wealth, or in what he calls an Alchemic world.

Productivity is basically the management of resources. Although proper management of resources is a move in the right direction, innovation, creativity, whole-mind thinking, and big picture thinking—what is referred to as “alchemy” in this article--are what is truly needed. Below are two examples of alchemy at work.

In the 1960s it was widely predicted that the chronic food shortages suffered by India and Pakistan would result in mass starvation. However, the Indian government called on Norman Borlaug, a plant breeder born in Iowa, who--together with his team—had developed a special breed of dwarf wheat that resisted a wide spectrum of plant pests and diseases and produced two to three times more grain than the traditional varieties.

By teaching local farmers in the region how to cultivate this new strain of wheat properly, they achieved an astounding increase in the yield of wheat within the span of a few years, which saved over a billion people in India and Pakistan from starvation. Some credit Borlaug with having saved more human lives than any other person in history. The answer in this example wasn’t to devise a new process that would allow faster harvesting or to develop a new machine that would deliver pesticide more efficiently, but to create an entirely new breed of wheat.

Our second example of alchemy involves rice. Rice is the staple food in Asia and an important dietary component in the rest of the world. Given the rise in Earth's population from around 6.5 billion today to an estimated more than nine billion by mid-century, boosting rice harvests is essential. In addition, the price of rice and other cereals has surged in the past year in response to drought in the United States and Australia, and to incentives to grow biofuels rather than food crops.

In an article published in Nature Genetics this past Sunday, May 4th, it was announced that scientists in China have discovered that by manipulating a single gene in the rice plant they may be able to control rice yield, as well as its height and flowering time. Once again, it is this breakthrough that may be a crucial step in global efforts to increase crop yield, and not a new method to harvest rice more quickly or a device to make workers more comfortable as they harvest.

How to Become an Alchemist
You become an alchemist by developing both hemispheres of the brain. Efforts to increase productivity usually involve only the logical, analytical, left-side of the brain. In order to innovate, to think out of the box, to have intuitive flashes that lead to breakthroughs, and to be able to see the forest instead of just looking at the trees, you need to develop the right-side of the brain.

There are many ways to do this; a very effective way to develop whole brain thinking is through meditation and similar practices that induce the brain to function at the alpha frequency of mind. In addition, artistic pursuits such as drawing, creating mandalas, playing a musical instrument, and even creative writing can help you to develop the right-hemisphere of the brain.

Even people who plan their day to the T, treat their day-timer like the Bible, and know every productivity hack out there can become alchemists. You just have to be willing to create instead of organize, to synthesize instead of analyze, and to rely on what your intuition tells you instead of limiting yourself to the world shown to you by your five senses.

-Marelisa