When I first went freelance three years ago, I became obsessed with ‘productivity hacks’.
Without a boss to set me a daily workload, I was no longer being told what a successful – or unsuccessful – day looked like. And so, rather than sitting down and defining that for myself, I blindly followed a ‘should’: ‘I should be more productive’. What did that mean? I had no idea! And no time to find out! Apparently. And so I beat on, the frazzled love child of the White Rabbit and Will from The Inbetweeners revising for A-Levels (thankfully, without the gastrointestinal side effects).
I cut myself off from the things that make work (and, well, life) meaningful: joy, curiosity, connection, creativity and collaboration. A lack of which, ironically, makes you seriously unproductive.
I became fluent in terminology such as ‘workflow’, ‘Parkinson’s Law’ and ‘goal planning’. Working days crept into evenings, ‘rest breaks’ fell to the wayside. I installed a Pomodoro technique browser extension on Google Chrome, designed to divide my workload into 25 minute chunks. I had a stack of paperbacks written by American self-help gurus on my bedside table. I made a lot of Trello boards. I was unbearable.
If you’re wondering, my strategy – if you can call it that – did not work. With limited exceptions, mostly to do with habit formation, which I will share in this Friday’s newsletter, my quest for productivity simply left me overworked, astonishingly inefficient; and cut off from the things that make work (and, well, life) meaningful: joy, curiosity, connection, creativity and collaboration. A lack of which, ironically, makes you seriously unproductive.
My particular flavour of productivity guilt came from the doomed recipe that was a need to ‘make it’ as a freelancer, whatever that means, marinated in a soup of stress and global pandemic-induced isolation. It was missing the essential ingredients of self-compassion, self-care and perspective (the lazy metaphor ends here, I promise). I’ve since learnt the error of my ways. Ish. But still, we’re all feeling it:
‘I am deeply convinced I'm lazy. I spend so much time thinking I should be doing more. It's pathological,’ says the copywriter with a challenging full-time job and a dog, who’s writing a novel on the side.
‘I’m stagnant on the work ladder during maternity leave,’ says the Oxbridge-educated lawyer.
‘I always feel guilty when I’m sat at home doing nothing, like I’m wasting the day,’ says the policewoman who regularly works successive night shifts, not to mention the overtime.
Nor is this a ‘work-based’ phenomenon – it’s common to feel different, and even competing, types of productivity guilt: for instance, some for the professional work you ‘should’ be doing, some for the personal goals you ‘should’ be making progress on. And the latter guilt follows us home from work, apparently. One person put it nicely:
'During the 9-5, efficiency seems to be the metric. And then 5-9 seems to be FOMO-driven goals’
And it can come from all sorts of places:
A sense that our ‘self-worth’ is tied to our ‘output’ (again, whatever that means)
A need to be ‘busy’ to distract from difficult emotions
Familial or parental attitudes towards work and busy-ness
A shift in lifestyle, meaning we have less (or more) time available for certain tasks
A bout of comparison-itis: someone we’re close to has picked up a foreign language/mastered a sport/learnt an instrument/published a novel and so we feel we ‘should’ do that, too.
‘I work with so many clients around this. It’s massive. I am yet to find anyone with this pattern who is unproductive’
It’s a reassuring perspective.
The Shoulds by Francesca Specter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Our final food for thought, also from Felicity:
‘The big cost [of this feeling] is not being unproductive (or shame, or low self esteem, or energy or tiredness): it is actually desire. Endless “doing” comes at the cost of your true desire. You don’t give yourself space to ask. You can’t feel what you truly want beneath the activity of getting something done.’
So this is what I want to know from you:
🤖 Do you often feel like you ‘should’ be more productive?
⏱ When do you feel that pressure the most: during your working day; during your leisure time; or just a general feeling?
💭 What do you think the outcome would be if you were more productive (whatever that means to you)?
⚖️ Does your need to feel ‘productive’ help, or hinder, your overall happiness?
Do you often feel like you ‘should’ be more productive?
I felt this way particularly strongly during the lockdown years. I felt I had to show, every day, that I was being more productive because we were forced to work remotely for the company.
I watched many tutorials, downloaded apps and templates, and did Study with me sessions with some youtubers!
⏱ When do you feel that pressure the most: during your working day; during your leisure time; or just a general feeling?
Nowadays, during leisure time. I have a 9to5 M-F job and I feel that my leisure time should be devoted to things like: getting fit, meal preparation for the next week, update LinkedIn, because productivity, I feel, is attached to a cultural mandate that if you take care of XYZ today there is the promise of a brighter future waiting for you.
I find that our quest for productivity is related to a fear to lose control.
I have a complicated relationship with this 'should'. Living with energy-limiting chronic illnesses has done a real number on my sense of self and my ability to produce in a way that I know a "healthy version" of me would be able to. It's not even just about "what we should do" and expectations for others - it comes from a deep-seated frustration at not being able to do the things I "should" otherwise be able to do - and more than anything it has been very much linked to my sense of who I am as a person and how I feel fulfilled.
These days, I look at productivity differently. Because my capacity changes so much (as has been the case recently with a bit of a flare up), learning how to be as efficient (and yes, productive) as possible is incredibly important in helping me maximise the energy I do have, without pushing myself into a crash. The last part is something that I'm still working on, but I find a lot of productivity tools (tweaked, of course) actually play a really important role in helping me to slow down and be more mindful about what I'm doing and how I'm spending my energy.
I definitely relate to this 'should'. But I have also come a long way in being kinder to myself and acknowledge that not every living moment should be something to mark off a 'To do' list. I feel the pressure most if I am at home, relaxing (re: feeling like I'm not 'doing anything') and reading, or watching another episode on Netflix. However if I am out just aimlessly walking, or at a coffee shop just reading, I somehow don't feel that guilt. It's like I've made the effort to leave the house and therefore have achieved something that day, even if I am doing the same nothingness, just in a different environment.
Do you often feel like you ‘should’ be more productive?
I felt this way particularly strongly during the lockdown years. I felt I had to show, every day, that I was being more productive because we were forced to work remotely for the company.
I watched many tutorials, downloaded apps and templates, and did Study with me sessions with some youtubers!
⏱ When do you feel that pressure the most: during your working day; during your leisure time; or just a general feeling?
Nowadays, during leisure time. I have a 9to5 M-F job and I feel that my leisure time should be devoted to things like: getting fit, meal preparation for the next week, update LinkedIn, because productivity, I feel, is attached to a cultural mandate that if you take care of XYZ today there is the promise of a brighter future waiting for you.
I find that our quest for productivity is related to a fear to lose control.
I have a complicated relationship with this 'should'. Living with energy-limiting chronic illnesses has done a real number on my sense of self and my ability to produce in a way that I know a "healthy version" of me would be able to. It's not even just about "what we should do" and expectations for others - it comes from a deep-seated frustration at not being able to do the things I "should" otherwise be able to do - and more than anything it has been very much linked to my sense of who I am as a person and how I feel fulfilled.
These days, I look at productivity differently. Because my capacity changes so much (as has been the case recently with a bit of a flare up), learning how to be as efficient (and yes, productive) as possible is incredibly important in helping me maximise the energy I do have, without pushing myself into a crash. The last part is something that I'm still working on, but I find a lot of productivity tools (tweaked, of course) actually play a really important role in helping me to slow down and be more mindful about what I'm doing and how I'm spending my energy.
I definitely relate to this 'should'. But I have also come a long way in being kinder to myself and acknowledge that not every living moment should be something to mark off a 'To do' list. I feel the pressure most if I am at home, relaxing (re: feeling like I'm not 'doing anything') and reading, or watching another episode on Netflix. However if I am out just aimlessly walking, or at a coffee shop just reading, I somehow don't feel that guilt. It's like I've made the effort to leave the house and therefore have achieved something that day, even if I am doing the same nothingness, just in a different environment.