Your worth isn’t validated by your 9–5.
Freelancing taught me that it’s next to impossible to be productive for 8 hours straight. I timed my hours from 8:30 AM to 5 PM to find that I really only did 5–6 hours of deep work.
It’s nothing to feel bad about. You don’t need to burn the midnight oil to make up for your self-proclaimed lack of productivity. You’re always going to be your own worst critic.
I stressed tested myself into a dark place when I got upset about my own productivity. While I’m still learning to deal with it, I’ve learned how to reduce the amount of pressure I put on myself significantly.
Follow along for some digital stress relief.
Productivity vs. Burnout
It’s good to be a productive person.
We need to build to make the world 1% better every day. But when it’s time to slow down, I usually feel the tap of the little devil on my shoulder telling me to get back to work.
I used to not read books without feeling pressured to write my own.
But we need some input into our systems too. This year, my goal is to slow down and take in content instead of constantly feeling the need to produce it.
Reading books, watching Youtube, scrolling Twitter, and learning from people brighter than me is the best way to learn to make better content.
It takes 15 minutes of scrolling my new Twitter account to get inspired. Logging in is like going to a highly concise classroom full of professors I don’t pay tuition for.
The trick is to brutally consider who you follow. The new account isn’t for memes but learning.
When I’m there, I’m a student of the game. The best part is I still feel like I’m enjoying my free time. It’s not extra work that makes me feel like I’ll implode after the stress of my job.
Burning out on social media platforms is the last thing I want to do. So after my daily scrolls, I turn off social media for the day and make dinner or play games with my friends.
Unplugging from the social verse should be a daily priority.
Recognize your humanness
You’re not a robot.
Even highly efficient billionaire CEOs need time off. They can’t hardwire themselves into 12-hour routines on a daily basis.
Consider your motivation factor. Some weeks are full of work that you’re excited to do. Others make you say, “wait, it’s only Tuesday?”
Author Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in under three weeks. He spent all hours of the day laboring over his typewriter. He was stuck in the flow state for 21 days writing his masterpiece.
But afterward, he was burnt out. He fled to a cabin in Big Sur to isolate himself. He couldn’t work anymore.
You don’t have a plug coming out of your butt that you can plug into a power outlet. Preparing yourself for the ebbs and flows your brain gives you is the best defense against productivity dysmorphia.
Reflect on your year
Nothing significant is accomplished in one day.
Even a week is too short of grabbing any data. It takes a year to see the fruits of your labor.
Consider where you were last year. Not just physically, but in terms of your goals.
I started blogging in 2020, didn’t have an audience, and didn’t really know what I was going.
Slowly but surely, I found publications to write for and fell into a comfortable writing process that didn’t make me feel like I was working overtime.
It took well over a year to get to this point. Now people reach out to me with questions and for interviews. I broke a significant milestone.
Little, everyday actions add up big time. It’s hard to see what a 20-minute bout of effort means at the moment.
The trick is to keep living in the moment. Enjoy watching the leaves fall from the trees, and be thankful for every sip of clean water you drink.
The future isn’t here yet, so there’s no point in eating your energy thinking about it.
Make an effort to improve just 1% every day, and you’ll get to the place you want to be.