The Problem with Productivity
“In the pursuit of hustle, don't lose sight of what truly matters: your health, relationships, and overall wellbeing." - Author Unknown
In 2012, I finished (my first dance with) graduate school and moved from Chicago to New York City. The energy of the city was electric, addicting even. I loved it. I had initially moved with a very loose plan around working in the publishing industry. Blame it on Carrie Bradshaw, but it turns out it's tough to make a living in the book world and live in NYC.
So, I found my way into the tech startup world, landing a role in a content marketing position. The fast pace and lack of structure were right up my alley. The biggest word around at that time seemed to be "hustle." If you had hustle, you could make it in N.Y., in startups, and just about anywhere. And I had hustle. If you're unfamiliar with the term in relation to success, good for you. It doesn't end well for those of us who embodied it and used it as a pacemaker for achievement.
Hustle culture has become more widely known as toxic and terrible for our mental health. The BBC's article, "Hustle culture: Is this the end of rise-and-grind?" explains, "The hustle-culture narrative promotes the idea that there's always more to strive for: more money to make, a bigger title or promotion to secure and a higher ceiling to smash." And NYC is built on the hustle.
It can be easy to associate productivity with hustle and busyness and a blur between work and life and joy. The thinking can often go: To be productive, I must be busy. To be busy, I must be constantly searching for more. To search for more, I need to hustle harder. And once I do all of that, I will be successful.
But what does productivity actually mean, and does it have anything to do with personal success?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Productivity is a measure of economic performance that compares the amount of goods and services produced (output) with the amount of inputs used to produce those goods and services.
The Bureau goes on to break down where you can measure productivity:
Individual worker's productivity
Company's productivity
Industry or sector productivity
Business sector productivity
National productivity
The takeaway, in an economic sense, is the more we do with less, the more productive we can be. So what does this mean for humans, in more human language?
The statement above works for 1950, for machines and their outputs, and for future robots. But I take issue with how humans are thrown into this mix. We are not meant to be box checkers, to-do list obsessive hustlers putting out more energy against a material goal by running ourselves thin.
At the end of your life, there is no badge of honor for how efficient or productive you are or how many tasks you got done. I'm fine with discussing efficiencies at a macro level, but in the micro elements of our day-to-day, we need a reframe.
I talk with many women and hear, "I don't feel productive." It could be a stay-at-home mom running her household or a woman working outside the home and feeling her "free" time should be filled with to-do lists. I never hear anything about productivity and rest. Or productivity and slowing down. Or productivity in doing absolutely nothing.
And as an active, recovering hustle addict, I get it. We don't define success by rest days in our society. Until the pandemic, I never saw a LinkedIn post about how self-care is productive. I would see gross posts about how much more people need to do to maximize their 24-hour days. If you're on LinkedIn, you know them well, the ones that glorify first in the office and last to leave, giving 150% and hustling day in and day out. Oh, the shame these posts induce for people. If I'm not cold-plunging at 5 AM and at work by 6 AM, grinding until it's dark each evening, how will I get promoted/make partner/impress people?! If I'm a stay-at-home mom and not cleaning all day, cooking all night, and booking all the appointments, what's my value?!
It sounds like an exaggeration, but these are real-life mantras.
When I hear folks say they're unproductive, I always ask: What does productive mean? And most people cannot tell me. "Being busy?" they'll say. And I'll ask, "Being busy doing what?" The reality is we cannot be busy 24 hours a day. That's not possible, and that's a horrible way to live.
It's not our fault we feel this way - it's been shoved down our throats that to be - successful, good, smart, insert all the things - we must hustle. We must do more with less.
We must be machines and magicians with our time and energy.
By the way, living a life like this will eventually land you in a state of burnout and misery. Let's discuss why people might feel unproductive and how to change your perspective. Let's have a new definition of productivity: spending time on the right things.
Right things = our goals. Whether at work or at home.
We can feel unproductive when we lack clear goals, making it seem like we’re not progressing. We all need a sense of direction, or else we feel aimless, chasing all the wrong things. What are your goals? Goals can map to plans, which can map to strategies, which can map to outcomes.
Positive outcomes on our personal and professional goals = improved self-esteem, confidence, and added joy.
Most importantly, we need rest, relaxation, realistic expectations, and some self-compassion to reach those goals. In other words, you need to focus on your mental wellbeing. You will not get to where you want to be if you're running on fumes, mentally or physically. It's a one-two punch. Good mental clarity will aid in achieving our goals, which will, in turn, make us feel productive.
If you need help with this, ask yourself how you define productivity. Is it the healthy version or the old-school-not-serving-us anymore version? You need the right definition to take action properly.
After several years of hustle, I burned out. Working long hours was not it. Becoming a mom had me re-evaluating where my time was spent and how, fast. But you don't have to wait for big life moments to do so; you can start now. If you're on the productivity hamster wheel and going nowhere, hop off. It's so much better on the other side.