Productivity is a simple formula of input over output. Input is usually measured as time and effort worked on a product where as output is the end product itself. I find a lot of people measure ‘productivity’ as time and effort over sale price; I argue this is not productivity, this is value of effort. While this is very important to record and improve this is not by definition productivity.

Another common misconception of productivity is efficiency. Efficiency is the measurement of how effective you are by calculating the time to effort. This is mostly measured by quoted time over actual time spent.

People have came up with all different theories in how to measure a product, but there is no defined answer and without the ability to measure the output/product there is not true way to measure productivity. This is why you often see so many discussions about what productivity is and why so many people are confused when trying to define it.