The productivity hack that really does boost careers

In less than one week’s time, Britain may be led by a man with a capacity for work that his friends say is phenomenal, ferocious and slightly exhausting to watch.

I discovered this last week after reading one of the many biographies of Keir Starmer, or as I have come to think of him, Keir Starmina.

The Labour leader, who polls suggest will be the British prime minister after the July 4 election, can work and work with “ridiculously small amounts of sleep”, according to one of his ex-girlfriends, the barrister Phillippa Kaufmann.

“Keir’s ability to work is absolutely phenomenal,” she told biographer Tom Baldwin. “I’ve never known anyone like him.” 

Starmer’s Stakhanovite tendencies were evident early on. “I’ve never seen anyone be able to study like him,” reported a school friend who remembered him being “at his desk for hour, after hour, after hour”.

A person who knew him at university was quoted saying that, when everyone else was lying around shattered after a big night out, “Keir would always be up at six the next morning, getting on with his studies”.

And one of his oldest friends said Starmer’s discipline and drive were so vast that “sometimes, it makes me feel weary just thinking about the life he leads”.

Reading all this reminded me of an uncomfortable truth about modern working life and the profusion of goal-setting, time-managing, email-batching productivity “hacks” we are constantly told will speed us to career success. None are any match for the inbuilt stamina of a Starmer.

This ought to be obvious. But I don’t think it is in a world where publishers are churning out as many as three books a day on how to be more productive at work, and sites such as TikTok burst with advice on how to do more faster.

The upshot of this industrial-strength guidance is the belief that productivity soars once one latches on to the right habits and work practices. Alas, it is not quite that simple.

I first began to grasp the importance of physical durability in my twenties when I bowled up to a famous older female reporter and asked her for the secret to success in journalism.

I had expected to hear her talk about the art of extracting information from sources; or being well-informed, or writing well. Instead, she gave an abrupt one-word answer: “stamina”.

I thought this odd but as time went on I kept seeing evidence of her point. A lot of persistently successful people keep working when lesser physical beings wilt with exhaustion, the flu or a general failure to function. That journalist herself is, at the time of writing, still a prolific commentator, researcher and writer — just days away from her 80th birthday.

Mental stamina, like physical staying power, is a gift, although it does have downsides.

Starmer was once so engrossed at his desk in a London flat he was sharing that he failed to notice two burglars were inside knocking off the TV and video recorder.

Life with a remorseless worker can also take its toll on family and work colleagues.

“Bed, woman!” Denis Thatcher would sometimes tell his wife Margaret, the late former British prime minister, who was said to get by on just four hours sleep a night.

Opinions differ about how well Baroness Thatcher functioned on this much sleep, which is comforting to those of us who prefer at least seven good hours of shuteye. 

Thankfully, being in the sleep elite is far less fashionable now that work-life balance is treated seriously. It is also worth remembering that stamina does not guarantee success. 

The business world has long been full of executives bragging about how little sleep they need but very few reach the heights of a chief executive such as Apple’s Tim Cook, who has said he likes to wake up before 4am and do an hour of emailing and a workout before heading to work. 

Then there is the current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak. He reportedly works around the clock — and on weekends. His generally diligent approach to work has never been in doubt. Yet the polls suggest he is about to lead his party to a defeat of dire proportions.

Ultimately, he is a reminder that a capacity for hard yards will take you a long way in life, but it won’t always be enough to achieve enduring success.

pilita.clark@ft.com