We DON’T always have to be productive
Sometimes hard work and hustle means taking time for ourselves
We live in the era of the hustle. The era of entrepreneurship, side projects and start-ups. We are entering a workforce where the messages of success have been redefined.
We dream of building the next Amazon out of our garage. We want to channel our inner Elon Musk and build four landscape-changing billion-dollar companies. We want that exclusive internship at the coveted tech company or renowned law firm. We want that management or vice-president position everyone is vying for.
And we are told we can have it, if we out-hustle and out-work. If we spend every minute bettering ourselves.
Three months ago, the world turned upside down. COVID-19 shut down most of the country and turned our workplaces remote. Suddenly many of us had no plans, less responsibilities, and copious amounts of free time.
But for ambitious and career-driven, this “free time” didn’t really mean free time. After all, we have been sent a message loud and clear: You need to be productive. If you aren’t spending all your free time learning, you’re getting outworked. You’re getting out-hustled. And you won’t succeed.
I’m all for hard work and professional growth. But I think we need to stop thinking that every unproductive moment is wasted time.
Just because we have an extra eight hours in the day, doesn’t mean we have to spend it all working on a side project, learning a new coding language, or taking a course on management practices. Professional growth is great, but it doesn’t need to fill out entire life.
We have more time for ourselves than ever before, and we shouldn’t feel guilty for spending it on ourselves.
Go read that novel that has been on your bookshelf for the past couple years. Learn the language you’ve always wanted to pick up. Take that random class on mid-nineteenth-century history or musical therapy that you’ve had your eye on, but never had the time for.
Do things you suck at. I am the kind of girl who hates being bad at things. But I’m trying to not let pride get in the way of trying.
Three months into quarantine, I have a wall full of Disney and Nintendo characters I’ve tried drawing. Some are ok. Most of them suck. I’m trying to learn Spanish, but my accent is fooling no one. My 12-year old brother can demolish me in tennis. And here I am writing, even though I am the worst speller in the history of all time.
But hey, it’s fun. Not to mention, you’ll never get better at things if you don’t work on them. And you never know when you might find something new you love or excel at.
We are people, not machines. We are more than a line of code or a business proposal or a financial report. Our skills and passions — even if they don’t directly relate to our field of work — make us three-dimensional and they make us human.
Furthermore, these “unproductive” activities can actually be quite valuable.
A prime example? In college, Steve Jobs took a course in calligraphy. By choice. For fun. This tech-geek-computer-science-genius-founder-of-Apple “wasted” his time on calligraphy, visual art that many artists don’t even find that appealing or exciting.
But it paid off. When Apple first released their Mac many years later, it broke open the market. Not only because it was a technological marvel, but because for the first time, high-tech wasn’t just an ugly box of processing power. Now it had multiple fonts and beautiful typography. It drew attention from people who never even cared about computers before.
To this day, one of the biggest draws of an Apple device is the beauty of its user experience. I guess calligraphy wasn’t that useless after all.
You never know what that book you read a couple months ago might inspire. Or when the basic Japanese you picked up might help you land an international client. Or who in your yoga class might become your new business partner. Even the most unrelated passions and skills find ways to relate to one another when they are ingrained into who we are.
And quite frankly even if they doesn’t ever come into play in your professional life, it is still exceptionally valuable.
Popular unpopular opinion here: your mental health matters. Your happiness matters. So even if you’re doing something that is entirely unproductive to your career goals, if it makes you happy, it is still worth doing.
I would never say don’t work hard, don’t hustle, don’t be willing to put in the extra hours. In fact, I firmly believe that you won’t succeed if you’re not driven to push through challenges and make sacrifices.
But I do think we should rethink our outlook on what productivity means. Our time and efforts don’t always have to directly impact our career trajectory. In fact, they shouldn’t.
We should be willing to try sometime new. To take time for ourselves. To be “unproductive.”
Because sometimes, being unproductive is the most productive thing we can do.
