The Productivity Paradox: Why Getting Things Done Still Feels Like Not Enough

A developer’s guide to quietly crushing it—and still feeling behind.

May 13, 2025

I had already worked through a solid slate of tasks before 10 a.m.:

Compiled and sent all required documentation to the lawyer for an upcoming mortgage closing.
Reviewed partnership proposals for the Forest Hill project.
Went over updated management budgets for Bridle Path.
Connected with a potential listing agent for Forest Hill to get information on their launch this past weekend.
Reviewed revised suite layouts for Forest Hill.
Drafted and published a new Substack article.
Pulled analytics for my podcasts and replied to viewer comments.
Replied to a lender’s inquiry about guarantors.
And yes—took out the recycling.

Still, by 10:01 a.m., I caught myself thinking: You didn’t get anything done today.

This happens more often than I’d like to admit. And based on conversations I’ve had with other developers, entrepreneurs, and even my own consultants, it’s surprisingly common. We can grind through a full checklist and still feel like we’re sprinting just to stay still—like the to-do list is some kind of Hydra: cut off one item, and two more appear before lunch.

The Illusion of Incompletion

Real estate development is a long game. It’s also a deeply fragmented one. A dozen micro-decisions each day move a project forward by inches, not miles. You spend months coordinating moving pieces—planners, lenders, architects, surveyors, neighbors, angry neighbors—and yet there’s nothing tangible to show for it most days.

I remember a stretch where I was juggling four different sites at various stages—zoning, design dev, pre-sales, and financing. Each day was packed. But at night, I’d lie awake thinking, Am I even moving the needle?

Why? Because nothing “big” happened. No crane on site. No groundbreaking ceremony. No press release. Just a lot of real work that, frankly, doesn’t feel very real until the structure goes vertical.

Why It Feels Like Failure

There are a few reasons why even our productive days feel empty:

Invisible Wins: No one celebrates “finalized electrical load calcs” or “answered that one annoying lender question for the fourth time.”
Too Many Open Loops: We start 10 things a day and finish maybe one. The rest are in purgatory—waiting on someone else, often indefinitely.
Developer Brain: We’ve trained ourselves to look for problems and solve them. So if everything’s “fine,” we assume we’re missing something—and go hunting for the next crisis.

The Antidote: Track the Done, Not Just the To-Do

Here’s something that’s actually helped: I started keeping a “done” list.

At the end of the day, I write down everything I did—not just what’s left. It’s not a brag sheet. It’s a sanity check. It proves that I’m not idle, that forward momentum is real, even if it’s not flashy.

Because here’s the truth: buildings don’t rise from one heroic workday. They rise from a thousand steady ones—most of which feel unremarkable while you’re in them.

Final Thought

If you’re in this business—or honestly, any business where you build something slowly—give yourself some grace. The work matters, even when it doesn’t feel like it. You are getting things done. Maybe not all of them. Maybe not today. But you’re doing the work that gets the building built.

And if all else fails, take a breath… and remember:
You took out the recycling. That’s something.