On Productivity: A Word of Caution

 You know that moment in a scary movie or soap drama at the height of suspense when you’re biting your nails to see how it ends? Well, imagine instead of waiting a few minutes, hours, or days for the resolution, you’re waiting for decades. That’s how I feel about life. I’ve always been pretty fixated on what’s next and how I can optimize my options for the future. I know I can’t control the web of possibilities and so I hold on tight to the things I can control. This can make it really hard for me to feel comfortable doing nothing. There’s always one more assignment I can finish before bed so that I’m more prepared for the next day. There’s always some absolutely crucial piece of information that I can’t remember. All the loose ends of life can leave me flailing in a sea of anxiety.

“What if I can’t finish organizing this event?”

“What if this presentation’s not perfect?”

“What if I get a bad grade and it leads to a butterfly effect that starts armageddon?”

My thoughts can get out of hand pretty fast. 

I know that naturally, I’m a very task-oriented person and I invest a lot of time in learning to be more productive (and yes I know how that sounds). I’m a big fan of productivity YouTube channels such as Rowena Tsai, Matt D’Avella, and Better Ideas. I use Notion for weekly planning and assignment tracking, and I read books on topics such as habit formation and digital note-taking (hit me up for recommendations). 

I’ve felt this need to be ahead of schedule since I was little. When I was younger, I liked to sleep late and wake up early. I remember waking up early on weekends and reading for hours before making breakfast, enjoying the peaceful silence of the house. In the early morning stillness, I felt a strange kind of satisfaction like I was the only one in on a juicy secret. 

Now that I’m older, I often don’t feel motivated to do work on the weekends, which frustrates me to no end. All the low-level fatigue from the week catches up to me and I feel exhausted even when I get 10 or 11 hours of sleep on a Friday night. It’s become a cycle where I just don’t feel like doing anything and, by Saturday, I’m stressing about all the work I was supposed to get done. By Sunday, all my weekend expectations from Friday night pool into dread for the impending week. 

I know that question you want to ask: Aya, why are you like this? That’s a pretty good question that I haven’t completely figured out yet. I think there’s this hope somewhere in the back of my head that if I can just finish everything faster, I’ll become extraordinary. I have some subconscious hope that if I jump this next hurdle fast enough, life won’t be hard anymore and I’ll have everything figured out. I’ll no longer be in suspense. But I also know that it’s not just me. We live in a “hustle culture” society where productivity is valued above anything else. I wonder what it would be like to live in a society where we’re not constantly expected to produce, where our towns and cities were intentionally designed for leisure, play, and connectivity. Many people in Western society can carve out the space for this kind of fulfillment only if they have the privilege to do so. 

I know that I’ll have to manage my fixation on productivity throughout my life. To be honest, being productive and finding that flow state can feel euphoric. But if I spend all my time on being “productive” I lose sight of my true priorities and lose my ability to be a good friend and sister. This productivity mindset is a distorted view of what any human being actually needs to be happy. At the end of the day, our biggest accomplishment is enjoying ourselves in the constant suspense of life.