Don’t Be “Productive”
Balance is life
Procrastination is something nearly everyone alive on this planet has experienced. Remember that slippery emotion of ‘I just don’t feel like it today’ that tingles at the back of your mind? Before you know it, it whisks you away to spend six hours drowning on the internet or doing something you can barely remember afterwards. Feeling like a furry sloth, you close your eyes that night and realise that the day has been wasted.
If this continues for weeks and months on end, you slowly feel your willpower diminishing until you barely resist the urges. Some people spend much of their lives trapped in a cycle of waiting for the right time and expecting perfection, putting it off when the circumstances aren’t ideal, and then feeling pressure and guilt solidify like a layer of ice above them.
For many of the last few years, I went through a drama queeny pattern of shooting up and down with my productivity. When everything would align, I’d go at 100%. Meeting deadlines, waking early, writing like a feverish scribbler and talking to tons of people. But when the slumps hit, the motivation to do anything would seep out of me. Studying, bathing, thinking any positive thoughts — everything was an effort through the blurry haze of my mind. This mental state can feel quite numb and lonely, like you’re being crushed smaller into your own body. It took time but slowly, I realised the truth.
The root of all my problems was perfectionism.
The Imperfect Nature of Life
Life is constant and imperfect. We certainly don’t feel our best everyday. Athletes win an event one week but fail to come within the top 50 in the next. Some days your health flourishes and other days, you’re down with a cold. So many variables change every day that it’s impossible for every day to be exactly the same.
If life is imperfect, how can you be perfect everyday?
‘I’m going to run 5 km everyday.’ ‘I’m going to ace my exams in two months.’ Sure, these declarations sound grand. But we all know that it might take longer than we expected, that variables might come into play. You can and should pump yourself up, but remember, even sprinters can only run for so long before getting tired.
Pushing yourself to perfectly meet your whole routine, every time limit of the day, every day of the year is going to burn you out. Humans aren’t robotic. That’s just impractical, it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a person to not fulfill your commitments.
Something done everyday is better than everything done at once.
While being intense might work short term, what will we do when the next commitment rolls around? We intrinsically know ignoring something for weeks and then finishing it all at once is a bad long term strategy for life. Life is a marathon, not a race.
What I learnt is to be gentle with myself, and practise self love. On the days I just can’t summon the will to do something, I can’t let myself drown. The knee jerk reaction of quiet disappointment and escaping that feeling with hours of mindless entertainment must be stopped. It leaves guilt in it’s wake. So instead of running away from yourself, why not take an official break?
Think of it as a legit part of your routine. Once we give ourselves permission to do something instead of doing it against our own wishes, we feel much better. So watch a movie or eat something delicious, whatever may be your down time. The key to it being too much is knowing when to get up. Once you get the inner feeling that you’ve had enough, get up.
Balance and stability are the lifeblood of healthy productivity.
You are actually much more consistent than the sudden, explosive weeks of hard work. You feel like a much happier and more content person. That is the most important part: to feel peaceful and grateful.
Just take it one step per day. And on the days you cannot, just chill and be at peace with yourself. Protect your health and the four needs: Food, water, sleep and showering.
