Toxic Productivity Part 2: How to Change Your Mindset
Last week, in Toxic Productivity in the Workplace and What Comes Next, we addressed systemic toxic productivity, when the workplace demands a seemingly endless series of achievements, undue (and unreciprocated) loyalty, and more of one’s heart, soul, and time than is reasonable. We also touched on the concept of personal toxic productivity, or productivity dysmorphia.
Going forward, we’re going to look at what we can do to give ourselves some grace and separate our productivity from our identity. Today, we’re focused on changing the way we think about ourselves and what we accomplish.
But first, let’s look at three stories that illustrate what toxic productivity is not.
WHAT TOXIC PRODUCTIVITY IS NOT
Story #1: At the end of April, my delightful colleague Linda Samuels wrote a blog post entitled How to Successfully Let Go Now Even If It’s Only For Today. In that post, she described how she enjoys getting things accomplished and often feels compelled to do so. She had a list of what she intended to accomplish on that particular Sunday, but was beckoned by the beautiful spring wearther and instead enjoyed a day in nature with her husband. In my blog comment, I gently teased her:
LOL, I’m glad you let go, but I think I see your problem right away, Linda. You had a to-do list for a Sunday. Sunday is the weekend. You’re not supposed to DO anything on the weekends except eat, play, and be entertained in the first place! 😉 No housework, no work-work, just enjoying yourself. I’m glad you let go; now we need to help you plan letting go as your weekend task so you don’t even try to work!
Linda is not an example of toxic productivity. She’s self-driven, but she also knows how and when to let go and grant herself buffer time to enjoy life.
Story #2: Another colleague (we’ll call her X), is a real go-getter. She had been working to create a virtual course, but has not yet made it go live because she’s so busy with her client load and is booked through the end of the summer. Disappointed that she hasn’t completed this combined educational/marketing tool, we’ve pointed out that the whole purpose of making people aware of one’s expertise is to get clients, and she already has more clients than spaces on the calendar! The girl is in serious demand!
Meanwhile, a few months back, X contracted COVID. Luckily, she had very mild symptoms, but of course she was quarantining. With no work to do, she headed outside and spent her quarantine weeding her garden! (Apparently, X didn’t know that the only acceptable reaction to being ill is to mope, wear fuzzy socks, and intersperse reading trashy magazines with bingeing guilty pleasure TV!)
X is also not an example of toxic productivity. She’s a product of a particular cultural background that especially prizes hard work and efficiency, but she also enjoys vacationing with her husband and entertaining friends around her pool.
Story #3: My BFF is a full-on, leaning-in career woman now that her children are all grown, but I recall a time when, for the 43rd conversation in a row, I was giving her a hard time about working so hard. She was raising four kids, volunteering in many realms, and though she had a bad case of bronchitis, was — as I was speaking with her on the phone — making cupcakes for a school bake sale!
As only a BFF can push, I pointed out that 1) she was sick and did not need to be doing anything for anyone else, 2) she could have sent her husband to the store to buy cupcakes, and 3) nobody wanted her bronchitis-germy cupcakes anyway! (I’m sure my voice went up three octaves by the time I got to the end of my diatribe.)
If I didn’t know better, I might think my BFF might be an example of toxic productivity. But she’s actually an example of systemic expectations of mental load, emotional labor, and American women unintentionally embracing the societal view that a woman’s value is based on what she does for others. (For superb writing on how to counter this, check out Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work Is Never Done and What To Do About It, by my colleagues Regina Lark and Judith Kolberg.)
So, toxic productivity isn’t always what it seems. But also, what you do is not who you are.
REVISITING PRODUCTIVITY DYSMORPHIA
Last week, I referenced Anna Codrea-Rado piece, What is Productivity Dysmorphia?, for Refinery 29. In it, Codrea-Rado, a successful author, pointed out some of the hallmarks of productivity dysmorphia as she experiences it and as others have described it:
- a difficulty experiencing pride in one’s accomplishments
- a focus on what could have done better or what more could have accomplished
- a disconnect between objective achievements (what you might put down on your “have done” list) and emotions about those accomplishments
Codrea-Rado says of productivity dysmorphia that:
It is ambition’s alter ego: the pursuit of productivity spurs us to do more while robbing us of the ability to savour any success we might encounter along the way.
In particular, I was intrigued that by Codrea-Rado interview with Dr. Jacinta M. Jiménez about hedonic adaption. Usually, we talk about hedonic adaption, or the hedonic treadmill, in terms of our desire for tangible things.
In the famous story of Diderot’s dressing gown, the French philosopher was gifted a fancy robe to replace a tatty one. As Diderot got used to his new dressing gown, he came to see his sense of self as defined by its finery. He felt dissatisfaction with his older possessions and began of spiral of 18th century keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism, replacing the perfectly good items associated with his old life and going into debt to keep up with the identity of the new.
Hedonic adaption applied to the sense of one’s productivity is compelling. Like Diderot and his dressing gown, the more we accomplish, the more we expect of ourselves, and the more we build our identities on a foundation of being the kind of person who accomplishes things. Initially, we may delight in what we have already done, but soon the new “finery” of our most recent client acquisition, business coup, or media exposure becomes the baseline, and we hunger to accomplish more and more (as we appreciate our successes less and less).
Of course, there’s more to all of this, as Codrea-Rado’s piece shows: gender, race, class, mental health, neurology, and how society views performance within and across groups all determine how we view (and mischaracterize) our own performance. There’s no wonder that a tweet like this might resonate.
“how do you do so much?” it’s a little thing called never feeling like i am doing enough ?
— ashley ray (@theeashleyray) June 13, 2022
And it’s also no wonder that there’s finally a backlash against a culture that promotes productivity above all, as seen in books like Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and pieces like The Frustration With Productivity Culture in The New Yorker.
HOW TO CHANGE THE PRODUCTIVITY MINDSET
So, what can we do to approach being productive in a way that’s healthier for society and for ourselves? I’m a professional organizer, not a mental health professional, so the first thing I recommend when I’m working with clients to help them be productive on their own terms is to listen.
Each person’s story is unique, and the solutions for finding the right combination of tools and solutions to “right-size” their productivity is going to be unique, too. We start where they are.
That said, I’m a big believer in recommending therapy if someone’s sense of self doesn’t reflect objective reality. But beyond a therapeutic approach, any and all of the following may prove fruitful in achieving a healthy productivity mindset.
Debunk the Common Myths About Productivity
There’s a lot of bad productivity advice out there, and a lot if it will make you feel bad about yourself. For example, there are oodles of articles, podcasts, and books telling you that if you want to accomplish the goals you set, you have to rise early in the morning, to which I say:
PIFFLE!
I have been a night-owl since childhood. My creativity comes alive at night. My clients know that my brainpower increases as the day goes on. (And I write all of these Paper Doll posts in the post-midnight hours.) Before 10 a.m., I’m cranky and poorly disposed to craft a useful sentence.
So, productivity myths abound.
I suggest you start with this excellent article Linda Samuels shared with me, Your Productive Brain, by Dr. Dean Burnett with the BBC Science Focus. From the time you awaken, to the claim that “we all have the same 24 hours” (which I’ve previously debunked here, often), to the false equivalency between busy-ness and productivity, the piece is eye-opening.
Chances are that if your identity is based in how much you accomplish, you might have trouble embracing the idea of doing less? But what if science told you that that would be the best way to get more done, or at least more done well?
Jay Dixit’s piece in NeuroLeadership entitled We’re Doing Downtime Wrong explains that cognition depends on two different brain networks. The central executive network (think: executive function, not CEOs), or task-positive brain network, activates to help us use our memories of previously-acquired information to comprehend new information, focus our attention, come up with solutions, and make decisions.
But this aspect of our brain doesn’t work alone! The other is the default mode network — it’s what your brain is thinking about when nobody’s expecting anything from you. (So, for Paper Doll, that would be either Reese Peanut Butter Cups or Doctor Who.) And we NEED this network if we want to be creative! That’s why, when we’re having trouble solving a problem and we go away to take a shower or go for a walk, the answer seems to magically come to us!
Light Bulb Moment Photo by Pixabay
We need downtime for our brains to make those big, creative leaps. All work and no play makes Jack and Jill decidedly dull kiddos.
So, if you focus all of your attention on being productive because your identity is forged in what you accomplish, you might want to remind yourself (until you gain a more healthy self-image) that getting stuff done (well) requires periodically doing nothing.
This only touches on one part of the NeuroLeadership piece. We’ll be coming back to it next week when we look at physical, tangible ways we can change our responses to toxic productivity.
Embrace a Completely New Philosophy of Work…
I was intrigued by How To Care Less About Work by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen in The Atlantic. The piece ties what we discussed last week, regarding how corporatized expectations of our productivity can help determine (and warp) our sense of our own value to the solutions individuals can take to reconfigure how we see the value of work as just one part (and not the most important part) of life.
Without calling it toxic productivity, as such, Warzel and Peterson recognize that we are all, collectively, having a bit of angst these days, these years. Instead of the quarter-life crisis everyone was worried about a few decades ago, it seems we’re all having what the authors call “the existential crisis of personal value.”
And in response, we’re all trying to be as productive as possible, whether we are working for others (as described last week) and being squeezed dry of our creativity and humanity, or if we are solopreneurs, self-employed, and small business owners doing it to ourselves, all in the hope that we will discover what Warzel and Peterson eloquently call our “purpose, dignity, and security.”
Oy.
The piece makes several points, but I keep returning to one central question the authors ask: Who would you be if work was no longer the axis of your life?
The authors also invite readers to consider a time when work meant things done at work, for pay — recall being a newspaper carrier or a restaurant server, where labor had a distinct end point. Then they ask, what did you do with your unscheduled time, just because it was what you liked to do? And to clarify, they note they are asking about what you did…
Not because it would look interesting if you posted it on social media, or because it somehow optimized your body, or because it would give you better things to talk about at drinks, but because you took pleasure in it.
I don’t know about you, dear readers, but this sure gave me pause.
Child on Bike at Sunset Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash
They continue:
Once you figure out what that thing is, see if you can recall its contours. Were you in charge? Were there achievable goals or no goals at all? Did you do it alone or with others? Was it something that really felt as if it was yours, not your siblings’? Did it mean regular time spent with someone you liked? Did it involve organizing, creating, practicing, following patterns, or collaborating? See if you can describe, out loud or in writing, what you did and why you loved it. Now see if there’s anything at all that resembles that experience in your life today.
From these questions, Warzel and Peterson stand in for the therapists and encourage the embrace of those joyous things. Not Arts & Crafts to develop a side hustle for Etsy but for the radical delight of painting or drawing or fiddling with crayons and pipe cleaners and sparkly glue. Not biking to get a count for your Fitbit or fill the rings on your Apple Watch, but for the sheer joy of the wind in your hair. Not dancing because it burns calories or to get likes on your TikTok version of Lizzo’s latest song, but because of the sheer exuberance it brings you.
Consider the possibility that what you are when you are working is not who you are, or at least not all that you are. And not to put words in the authors’ mouths, but find your bliss. Find your crayons on pipe cleaners.
…or Embrace a Completely New Philosophy of Life
Last year, I read Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Combining psychology, ancient and modern philosophy, spirituality, and a bit of popular culture, it slaps a reality check on the constantly turning wheels of productivity culture.
Burkeman invites us to embrace “finitude” — the understanding of the shortness of life.* Starting from the premise that, given an average life span of 80 years, he notes that we have just 4000 weeks, give or take, on the planet. As you approach week 3972 or so, do you really think you’ll look back and be unalterably happy that you spent most of those weeks doing TPS reports (yes, another Office Space reference) or making cold calls or quantifying your worth in checked-off boxes or bank balances?
In the book, Burkeman posits some questions that I think most of us who dabble with productivity dysmorphia might find mind-blowing:
- Is it possible you are holding yourself (and others) to impossible standards?
- Are you holding yourself back from doing certain things you really want to do because you don’t think you are smart enough, experienced enough, talented enough, or just plain enough?
- Are you doing what you are doing because you’re trying to be the person you think others expect you to be? Or the person you’re “supposed” to be (as if that were even a thing)?
- How would you live your life, your years, your days differently if you stopped focusing on what you achieve.
Pretty heady stuff, eh? Nobody is saying run off to the beach to be the next Gidget or Moondoggie (oh, gee, is anyone under 50 going to get that reference?), but perhaps we shouldn’t center our achievements, especially if we’re having trouble appreciating them in the first place.
Burkeman avoids providing productivity hacks, but he does have some atypical advice for living with an appreciation of the finitude of life. Some are obvious — get rid of the technology (like social media) that doesn’t add to the joy of your life, not because it steals time from what you accomplish, but because it steals time from what makes you happy.
Burkeman also recommends some pretty philosophical tasks that can’t be quantified, which has the benefit of taking you off the productivity merry-go-round. For example, we know that the brain appreciates novelty; we remember what happens on vacations because everything is out of the ordinary. So, he recommends avoiding routine (the things we productivity experts often praise) and seeking novelty in the “mundanity of life.”
He also suggests building a habit of instantaneous generosity, wherein you act on thoughts of doing a kindness in the moment when you think of it. It’s certainly the opposite of the advice we usually see about maintaining focus on our tasks. But again, we’re trying to improve our life satisfaction rather than our joy in ticking one more task off of our to-do list.
*Does “the shortness of life” sound familiar? In On the Shortness of Life, Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste so much of it.”
In case you assumed (as I did) that the Stoic philosophers were all Spock-like and devoid of emotion (based on a common (mis)understanding of the usual meaning for “stoic,”) I’ve got some delightful news for you. The Stoics, and Seneca in particular, offer up great advice for coping with life and making it feel like more than just a race to the finish line. David Fideler’s Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living is a great place to start for an ancient approach to our modern productivity mindset problem.
Consider This Baby Step for Adjusting Your Productivity Mindset
Matt Haig, the author of some truly compelling novels like The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time has written a remarkable book I turn to time and again. It’s called The Comfort Book, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is dealing with depression or anxiety, or a broken heart or a moment (or several) of doubt, or the experience of living in the 21st century.
As I was preparing this post, what Haig wrote about “Being, Not Doing” felt particularly apt.
You don’t need to exhaust yourself trying to find your own value. You are not an iPhone needing an upgrade. Your value is not a condition of productivity or exercise or body shape or something you lose via inactivity. Value is not a plate to be continually spun. The value is there. It is intrinsic, innate. It is in the “being” not the “doing.”
“You are not an iPhone needing an upgrade.” Damn, Matt Haig, that’s good.
As we part ways until next time, if you hold onto one thought during the internal struggle over how much you’re getting done: It’s in the being, not the doing.
As this series continues, we’re going to be looking at specific ways we can change our physical actions to help our brains accommodate a different view of our productivity. This will include focus, sleep, silence, nature, walking, companionship, technology (and the absence of it), and more.
And in the final installment, we will circle back around to productivity techniques. Not hacks. Not ways to get more done in less time so that you can cross the finish line to then do something else productive. Rather, we’ll look at some modern productivity science and so we can complete what is essential and then walk away from doing and focus on being.
Until then, please feel free to share your thoughts about the dark side of personal productivity.
Paper Doll Post:
“It’s in the being, not the doing.” That is so powerful, Julie. One of the quotes that graces my desk is from Anna Quindlen is “I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.” And while it might sound opposite of what you said, it is related. It’s speaks to the idea of being present whether we’re in the process of being productive or we’re swinging on the front porch.
Thank you so much for the lovely shout outs and inclusion in this amazing post. It made me think about how as kids we would just go outside to play. There were no official play dates. And there were times when we were unscheduled. Amazing now to think about those times. But the value is we could wander, dream, recharge and come back to focus on work…or homework. Or, we would come back full of creative ideas and write or play music or draw or paint. All because we had time to not do, but to be and play.
The stat about the average human living 80 years or only 4,000 weeks is sobering. As I’m closer to the end than the beginning of my life, that really hit a cord.
And I definitely need to add Matt Haig’s ‘The Comfort Book’ to my reading list. I loved ‘The Midnight Library.’
Thank you for another amazing post filled with an abundance of ideas to ponder and revisit when I’m not being productive. 🙂
I love that Quindlen quote (and so much of what she writes) because it focuses on the experience and not the checked-off achievement. I get it.
As for the week count, several months ago I calculated that I was just coming up on 20,000 days of having lived, and it was…shocking.
And I’m really glad you liked the post, as you were, in part, a catalyst for me writing this series.
What… avoid routine? I’m not sure I can do it.
Okay, that’s a bit of joke, I can see that we can become enslaved by our routines, pursuing them regardless of whether they are serving us or not. I completely agree that life is to be enjoyed, and we need to be open to whatever we may be doing that is interfering with our joy.
I’ve actually never heard the term productivity dysmorphia. I usually hear the word associated with the body, but it makes perfect sense in this context as well. I think the point about holding ourselves to ridiculous standards is so important because we often then turn around and do the same to others. This can be particularly dangerous if you are the boss. If the boss wants to work 24/7, I suppose that is his right, but he shouldn’t expect his team to do this. I think it backfires.
Lots to chew on here. Love Matt Haig. Love Linda. Your posts are always a delight to wander through. 🙂
LOL, Seana, stick with me to the final (fourth) part of this series, because we’re going to look at a way to take AND counter that advice about routines to help us break up that toxic productivity.
And I think “productivity dysmorphia” is a very new term, as Codrea-Rado notes in her piece that she’d only been able to find one other person to use the term, casually, in a tweet, several years ago. So Codrea-Rado definitely made it known, and I’m trying to spread the word.
Thank you for your kind words!
Golly, Julie.. I need to read and reread this post. There is so much here to digest I don’t think I can adequately respond but I will make an attempt.
I am fascinated by all that you presented. I will be adding several of the books you listed to my reading list. I was struck by the question “who would I be if work was no longer the axis of my life?” The corollary is “what would I do?” “how would I fill my days?”.
This is a question that filled my head about 10 years ago. I decided at that time that I did not want to just mark time. I wanted to contribute in some way shape or form. To whom or to what I did not know but I could not go on the way I was. So I made some changes and now, perhaps, overfill my days. But, I am working on that.
Thank you – I am loving these thought provoking blogs. I can’t wait to read what comes next.
I love a comment that starts with “Golly,” Diane!
I’m really pleased that this resonated with you, and I have no doubt that you’ve designed a life where work takes and important, but not all-encompassing role. You are a super role model in this regard!
Thank you for your kind words!
THIS IS FANTASTIC. There’s so much here to think about. Sometimes my task list becomes a cudgel with which I can beat myself. Those are not good days, and when they happen I don’t make a list of things to do, but rather a list of things I can get done. Then, when I start bemoaning my lack of productivity, I can look at the list and see that I have actually be very productive. How wonderful would it be to not NEED to do that?
Also, I love the stoics, and try to practice a little of what they recommend,, especially seeing my emotions pass like clouds in the sky without judgment.
Also, also, one of my favorite questions to ask people is “Do you make art just for yourself?” People who play musical instruments without hoping for an audience or who draw just for the fun of it, or write stories they don’t expect anyone to read fascinate me. I’m not really sure if my hobbies (which are plentiful) are because I enjoy the doing of them or if I want the result. For example, there are several stages in quilting I don’t especially enjoy, but I do love the quilt at the end and thinking “I made that!”
Such a good post, Julie. Thanks for writing it.
Thank you SO much for your kind words, Dava.
I think we all have these issues to some extent. I don’t have hobbies, per se, but when I catch myself being too focused on my accomplishments, I remind myself that the things I do for fun a) aren’t really countable, b) can’t be turned into a side hustle, and c) aren’t really things other people see. What I do for pleasure (other than eating or talking) is consuming entertainment created by OTHER people. I don’t binge a show often, and if I do, it’s because it’s compelling and not because I want to tell others (or even myself), “Oh, look, I finished season 3!”
So, I don’t make art, but what I do for joy, at least, isn’t something I conceive of as an accomplishment. I think that helps balance the scales. If you make the quilt and don’t always love the making, but love the having, maybe it’s not liking the cardio, but liking the results it delivers?
I suspect that all of us inclined to work for ourselves, as solopreneurs or freelancers, are the kinds of people who are also inclined to measure our output. But when it crosses over into keeping us from appreciating our output, that’s when it gets scary. I hope you’ll stick with the series; more practical, actionable advice is up next.
I just realized there are approximately 40 typos in my comment – we’ll allow that to be a measure of how enthusiastic I was after reading your post 🙂
Enthusiasm trumps all!
What a topic! This is such an important issue and you address it beautifully. I’m writing this comment on my laptop at a restaurant, and I think I’m going to put the work away and just enjoy my coffee for a minute.
This makes me very happy, Katherine. Savor your coffee, enjoy your evening, and there’ll be time to work again tomorrow!
Oh, the wind in my hair! I sold my bike because…well, long story…but now I’m thinking I need an electric bike. So I can pedal when I can, and not have to when I can’t. Also, “Who would you be if work was no longer the axis of your life?” is such a good question! I’ve explored it (somewhat) in a couple of recent blog posts about being semi-retired. (I have more questions than I do answers.)
What I do know is that when clients come to me wanting to be more productive, I always help them figure out what they can do less of, not more. My business tagline is “Less clutter. More life.” Less clutter (time wasters, other people’s priorities, the things you HAVE to do), More life (the things you WANT to do, that are important to YOU and that give you joy).
As a Matt Haig fan, and the past recipient of excellent book recommendations from you, Julie, I will certainly be reading The Comfort Book. Thanks! And I can’t wait to see what else you have to say on this topic.
Ride like the wind, Hazel! And I’m still working on that question about work not being the axis of my life. For people without kids (or for men, in general), work is typically the central point of one’s identity, so these things get complicated, no matter who we are.
And I think I’m like you, in that I help clients do less of X so they can do more of Y, but they have to know what their “Why” is for that Y, per Simon Sinek!
Thanks so much for the positive feedback!