Four Solid Reasons to Ditch Productivity Before It Ruins Your Life

You don’t need it. You need patience instead.

I’m productive as hell and I hate it.

I read while I’m cooking. I usually listen to a podcast while washing the dishes. And when my kids come by to ask me something, I bark at them because I can’t hear anything. Then I feel guilty because I’m neglecting my pups.

I have so little time for work that I got myself into this loop to read whenever I can: When I visit my mom, waiting for my kids at sports, or even when I take a walk. And I record a draft on the street or think about it when I’m kissing my preschoolers good night. It’s not good.

The more you chase productivity, the more you harm your well-being and relationships. Been there, felt like crap, took me a lot of time to recover from it. While I was hyperproductive, I’d either feel numb as I accomplished a goal or frustrated because I’d burn out.

Here are four good reasons to stay away from the high work rate whenever you can.

#1 Productivity Won’t Make You Happy

When I was working for a finance company, I was like a multi-tasking octopus: One hand holding the phone while the other’s typing a report, and handing another document to the colleague who just got in.

I did all the work two times quicker because I didn’t want to stay at my desk after working hours. I hated the job but the pay was great. Still, the colleagues didn’t care about my work and gave me whatever whenever.

To say they were toxic would be an understatement. They were condescending, had unreasonable demands, and didn’t share any knowledge.

My position was unclear because the contract stipulated “translation, administration work, and whatever the employer asks for“, so they used that ambiguity to give me whatever they didn’t want to do. Apart from my regular work, I was also a courier, two different secretaries, and held the keys to the safe.

But, hey, I had awesome health insurance and bonuses. How could I be so ungrateful when people worked for twice less money than me? And so, I juggled it all.

I got so used to multitasking that my mom and friends seemed too slow. How come they didn’t optimize their time better?! When I’d get back home from work, I was constantly on my guard and stuffed myself with food and TV programs to release the tension of an office octopus.

I had the money but I didn’t have peace of mind. I desperately wanted to leave the place of fancy suits because the whole grind seemed pointless. What’s more, there was always someone who wasn’t satisfied with my work.

Takeaway:

Find a more natural source of happiness that doesn’t consume too much of your energy. Multitasking is unnatural and won’t make you assertive, tolerant, and calm. Also, no one will say “Thank you” for your diligence at work.

#2 You Put Too Much Self-Worth into Your Output

Does your job define you? Does your success reflect your self-worth? Are you lazy if you don’t work over eight hours a day although they said a hundred years ago that 40 hours a week is enough?

In her brilliant article, Zoe Williams explains how we are drowning ourselves in misery: We want to be a part of the rat race because we love our jobs and let our employers abuse us.

“Your work is your life, and when you are not doing your hustle, you have a side-hustle. Like all the world’s worst ideas, it started in Silicon Valley, although it is a business-sector thing, rather than a California thing.” — Zoe Williams, The Guardian

Companies like Facebook and Apple offer you egg-freezing so you can dedicate yourself to the corporate family before you start your own. Elon Musk works 2.5 times the norm and describes work as “the meaning” of life because when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work.

And you don’t mind working like a dog but then the pandemic hits, and you know what?

You realize that the whole society depends on the lowest-paid jobs like care work, delivery, and retail. Why not help them live with more money? And all your spreadsheets lose their meaning, so you start to volunteer to find happiness elsewhere.

We don’t need to push long hours. We need to change the system that makes us run nowhere like a hamster in a wheel so that we can have more while the guy on top gets himself another yacht.

What’s more, this way of life keeps you away from your fundamental self.

Takeaway:

Start developing your hobbies, relationships, and ways to recharge. There’s more to life than work. The amount of money you earn doesn’t define your value (See the lowest-paid jobs during the pandemic).

#3 Productivity Masks the Uncomfortable Part of Life, But It’s Still There

Last July my uncle jumped off the window in a COVID-19 hospital. A few hours before that, the doctor told him he was cured and going home on Monday.

It was such a huge shock for all of us since he was the most agile and energetic man we knew. He didn’t know the meaning of the phrase “I can’t”. After a while, I attributed his action to hallucinations that often accompany coronavirus. But a few days ago, I got a new piece of the puzzle.

Before he went to the hospital, my uncle started tripping he was seriously sick. His son took him for a prostate check and everything was fine but the old guy didn’t believe it. Once he found himself in the COVID hospital for pneumonia, he told his son:

“I won’t get out of here alive.”

He was afraid the COVID test was falsely positive and expected he had something worse. He spent a week there, seeing people come with bags and leave in plastic bags. For the first time in decades, he couldn’t do any work.

An idle mind is the devil’s playground, so my uncle started thinking about what-ifs. He never learned how to sit still and face his restlessness. And in the hospital bed, he was surrounded by death. Was he sick and the doctors didn’t know it? he was thinking.

He couldn’t imagine his life without the grit and grind. He had to push some goals and get excited about new projects. And now there was none of it, so his fear of illness and death swelled up. He took destiny into his own hands and jumped off the window.

Extreme productivity often protects you from the fear you’re going to grow old and die. And it helps you hide from your demons. Still, you can’t escape them for good.

Takeaway:

You can’t keep running from the uncomfortable part of life forever. Instead of losing yourself in the daily grind, learn how to be at peace when you’re all alone. It’s not all about work after all.

#4 Productivity Makes You Lose It

My recent productivity got me overwhelmed with information. I was constantly looking for new ideas for writing. I was scrolling and shifting between social media, always alert for some notification. The more I consumed, the more blank my mind felt.

And then I deleted all social media from my phone. No to make myself productive without distractions but to cut the noise of all that information. And I felt restless and yearning for content for a while because I was used to posts popping up all the time. But after a while, nature took its course, and I slowed down and got my sanity back.

If you focus on output, you detach yourself from ordinary life. You have everything planned from 6 a.m. — better make it 5 — till 9 p.m. The day is too short and you don’t allow any interruptions so you could do more. You stay away from breaks because it ruins your fantastic flow.

Meaningful communication with others, the sunny sky, the smell of spring flowers — they are all distractions you can schedule at some other time when you don’t have anything better to do.

But where are you going with all that productivity anyway?

It makes you overlook small pleasures because you’re all about affirmations and rise-and-grind. There’s no small chat only hustle, just push forward like Seneca did. It’s never enough and you feel you should do more, or better, or faster. Grit your teeth, soldier, you can do it!

Other people become your means or obstacles, not beings who have needs and with whom you could have a pleasant time.

Takeaway:

Enjoy the small pleasures and go back to small talk. Life is a constant flow that leads to we-don’t-know-where, so embrace close connections and simple joys for your wellbeing. They keep you sane, not your targets.

You Don’t Need Productivity. You Need Patience

What’s peculiar about productivity is that you usually learn it from people who never achieved much in any industry. They are just good at writing about it, and you take their words for granted because they turned into thought leaders.

Still, they don’t bear any responsibility for your wellbeing.

Thanks to bizarre tips they promote, you believe workaholism is better than alcoholism. But they both anesthetize, so you can’t see life in its full colors.

You can’t wait to get to the other side of the rainbow where your life is sorted out, so you push hard instead of biding your time. You think you’ll be happier if you get all you want faster. But when you finally reach it, you’ll see you aren’t all settled. There’s more to life than compartmentalizing it into SMART goals.

Instead of chasing Instagram missions, remember you can live a good life by doing things slower. So, ditch productivity and come to terms you won’t be able to retire at 30 as a multimillionaire. Start planning for a more comfortable but real life. Instead of huge plans for the future, bring small changes now.

Subscribe to my weekly digest on what makes life worth living or read my other popular pieces: