productivity per unit of time

David Ulevitch, a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, uses a measure called Productivity Per Unit of Time to evaluate the chances of founders building an iconic company.

Productivity Per Unit of Time represents a combination of a few critical factors including, in the words of Ulevitch, “how fast founders execute, learn, iterate, and adapt.”

Whether you’re a founder or not, I think Productivity Per Unit of Time can be a useful concept for evaluating your daily performance by prompting you to ask constructive questions like: 

What are the most important activities that can be done today? What must be postponed? 
Am I operating at my potential? Did I encounter any challenges? How can I address those challenges in the future? 

What did I learn? What makes sense to continue doing and what should I change? 

Even the act of asking these questions is a tremendous step forward in terms of moving from being complacent to intentional.