For the sake of clarity, I will here define "productive" in the sense that it actually leads people into the religion.
Even using that definition, quite a bit of time is actually wasted. I have been out in field circus when most of the time was frittered away. I went to a bookstore to "informally" present wastes of paper to customers browsing the store, and I spent most of the time looking at books. Not one second talking to anyone about religion. I did a return visit--several years ago, to buy a couple of the books including the Excitotoxins book I found the first time.
Other times, I have gone into the territory and then we had one errand after another. Gas, air in the tires, going to the bank or post office, stops for coffee or doughnuts, and returning for forgotten items wasted much time. Also, I have seen times when someone needed to be picked up and we wasted half an hour waiting. Plenty of times, I have sat in the car while everyone else was on a call--and wasted 45 minutes fogging up the windows so they would waste more time defogging them.
Even while actually in the field, much time is wasted. We get a side of a street done (maybe 20 doors), and then sit in the car for half an hour warming up or cooling off. Then we drive to a call, which is maybe 2 or 3 kilometers away (and waste another 10 minutes hunting for the house), and usually they are not home. I have been driven across the city, maybe 20 kilometers one way and through red lights, for a call that was not home--my whole hour of field circus for that month and a waste of a field circus hour for 3 or 4 people in that group. And the doors where no one was home--or that we would knock lightly (which was more prevalent in other territories because I had the misfortune of working with pigs that enforced the audible-knock rule).
And that still wasn't it. I had a pile of rags 1 1/2 meters tall to shred when I quit--running from the late 1980s through 2004. I would have 5 rags per issue--a pretty typical amount. Occasionally I would place all of them in a single run of an hour, but as often I had every single rag at the end of the month despite doing 20 hours that month (honest hours, not fake ones). Then, when I did place the rags, I was lazy in returning on those calls. After a couple of rag placements, typically the call would go to the bottom of the pile. And it was always more rags, never a book. I only placed one Suffer Forever book, and even that study fizzled after the very first installment because I didn't feel like getting out at 6 in the morning for the study.
And even if people do return diligently, studies do not progress. I have been dragged on many a study where they would go partway through the Suffer Forever book and not attend even a single boasting session. And even the ones that finish the Suffer Forever book were as often as not doing nothing. They still smoked, they still went to regular church, they still had families (via fornication) that they refused to break up with. And they did not attend boasting sessions despite houndings by those conducting the studies. Obviously, that did not further the cause of getting people into the cancer.
Needless to say, most of the field circus hours are completely wasted. And that doesn't even allow for that the whole religion itself is a scam. If you make that allowance, then none of it is really productive.
