The trap of always trying to be productive

I am a workaholic.

There used to be a time when I used to say this with pride, thankfully, no more. The shift happened during the first wave of the pandemic when I was locked up in my university room in the UK battling with my own sense of worthlessness that creeped in, just because I constantly reminded myself of the stuff that I was supposed to do but wasn’t able to.

However, what I wasn’t really accounting for was the fact that so much in my environment had also changed. There was a pandemic going on for God’s sake, and my benchmarks of productivity were still the same. Well, maybe, being productive in that day meant knowing how you are feeling and being okay with it. Or not finish reading the whole academic paper in one sitting. Or just ordering the groceries successfully (mind you, ordering the groceries was a pain during that time).

This realisation didn’t dawn on me from some genius corner of my head, I stumbled across this post while randomly scrolling through Instagram! It was May 2020, thankfully, pretty early on. This made complete sense, there was no need to bash myself up left, right and center, pandemic or no pandemic. But did I stop myself from doing that?

Ofcourse not! It’s another glorious failure in my kitty.

Total burnout

So I went on to overburden my plate, take on more than I could do because I totally miscalculated my energy levels, and eventually awakened to accept that I had totally, completely, unwantingly and yet knowingly, burned myself out. The idea that rest is a fundamentally important part of being productive didn’t really sit well with me. I also audaciously called sleep a waste of time (ha ha!). Thankfully, sleep hasn’t sought revenge by evading me, yet.

I have come to realise my own misunderstanding about the idea of being productive. It strongly stems from the kind of work culture, environment and notions that have been instilled in me/rubbed off on me. They have become so internalised that sometimes it makes me question my own decisions. A little feeble voice at the back of my head is always ready to tell me what’s not ‘acceptable’. Who defined what was acceptable and what wasn’t, anyway?

Learning to rest

I am still learning and appreciating the idea of rest. To strip the word of the sense of being lazy, worthless, slow and what not that it carries with itself. Redefining what productivity and rest mean to me is a journey with many unbelievable twists and turns, enabling me to take decisions I never thought I would. I am learning to unplug, learning to invest my time consciously, learning to not rush, learning to say ‘NO’ and above all, learning to say ‘YES’ to myself.

Your 100% each day can vary, and that’s totally alright.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash