I've had a very productive past week work-wise. Wrote an extension for the staff CV system, then wrote an add-on for my tincaCMS web content management system which automatically generates the weekly newsletter and the HTML formatted email to the entire organisation. That promises to save me a lot of time every week. And this afternoon I wrote a web application to display upcoming events and allow a user to copy them into text files. These text files are then displayed by a Shockwave application on big screens in the foyer at work, although that is someone else's application.
None of the above applications were particularly difficult, but they took me a lot shorter time to write than normal. Why? Well, enough people (including most senior managers) are away that it's very quiet and I can focus. No email interruptions, no phone calls and few visits. Worked from home today and got even more done because of no travel or colleague interruptions. Plus I can listen to music up loud, another aid to concentration.
It seems to me as if many managers measure productivity by meetings attended and contactability. But does a mobile phone or Blackberry make you more productive? I doubt it.