3 areas you should look at when it comes to your relationship with productivity

Rethinking productivity — Part 1

20 items on your to-do list. 5 calls scheduled for today. Your head is full, you feel stressed and it’s only Monday. Does this sound familiar?

Most of us have probably experienced a similar scenario at least once in our working life, sometimes even once every week. And this kind of scenario often gets glamorised in today’s culture. It feels that we are what we produce. Are we turning into ‘human doings’?

1. Hustle culture

Anyone who is building or has built a business has probably heard of the term ‘hustle’. Nowadays, it is associated with working on your business with drive, energy, taking action, and being productive with the aim to stand out and make your venture successful. It’s encouraged that you work on your business all the time as it will stand a greater chance to be successful, ideally in a very short time. Many entrepreneurs and motivational speakers support this trend and Social Media helps to spread the word which might also make you think ‘Do I actually care about my business enough if I don’t hustle?’

Rest and sleep get devalued and are often seen as things that you can reduce in order to create more time for your business. Working through the night or working on weekends is seen as a badge of honour.

The other problem that I see with hustle culture is the feeling that we are moving to a more individualistic culture where most people are only looking out for their own successes. Little care is given to the collective and if others are also moving forward, if they may need help or if something could be achieved by collaborating rather than going it alone.

I also wonder about the sustainability of hustle culture. It feels like it’s setting us up for burnout and we might feel trapped if this way of working becomes the default.

2. Your values

Our obsession with productivity often leads to filling every minute of our day with things, at work as well as at home. Everything becomes an item on our to-do list and new things get constantly added. With that, most things become an obligation that we have to get done, even the things we used to enjoy.

We seem to find ourselves in a constant, never-ending fight with our to-do lists and over time we start to neglect things that are important to us. We might see our friends and family less as there is always something else to do. But, most importantly, we start to neglect our own needs. We forget to check in with what we really need and value — is achieving this thing what you really want and need right now or do you just want to win the fight with your ever-expanding to-do list? To take on a to-do list that is not aligned with your values is a fight that you are doomed to lose. If you are not clear why you are doing something and what your priorities are, work and the next thing on your list, will always win.

3. Your wellbeing

In the midst of it all, we also start to forget what is good for us and our wellbeing but we keep going because it has served us in the past and it’s often the only way we know. We continue to overload our days with tasks and we aim to hustle our way through. We work to fill a bottomless hole that’s getting bigger if we don’t start to look at what’s behind it. Is the need to work and be productive at all times perhaps covering a belief of not feeling good enough? Do you feel you need to do more because you want to be respected and liked by others and you don’t want to be seen as lazy? Do you even feel that regardless of what you are doing or achieving, it’s never enough? And that in comparison to others, you seem to fall short and it hurts. But what you often don’t realise is that you are comparing your current reality, for example as a new business owner, with someone else’s established business.

Allowing this way of working to continue for a long time can have detrimental consequences on our mental health and self-worth. Luckily, there are many things you can do to help you to overcome an unhealthy relationship to productivity. I’m going to explore them in the second part of this article.

I hope this article helped you to take a closer look at your relationship with productivity. Do you see yourself in some of the scenarios described above?