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How to Get Over Productivity Guilt
Productivity guilt
It’s the constant nagging feeling that you should be doing more. And if you’re not doing everything, then you’re a lazy slacker who will never reach your goals. -- Scott H. Young
That’s simply not true. Even small efforts have a cumulative effect.
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Be Imperfect
No one is perfect—not even the people you admire most. The reality is we can’t realistically implement every life hack out there.
Do not worry if something falls by the wayside. Pick it up again if you think it worked. Doing it a little is better than not doing it.
The Flaw Of Perfection
If you were to do everything you’re advised to do to have a perfect, productive life, you’d basically have no time to just be alive, no matter how efficiently executed.
Separate the nice-to-have from the essential. Most advice is nice-to-have—it helps, but only a little. If you can focus on the essential things that matter for your few goals, then you can stop feeling guilty about everything else.
Start Where You’re At
The question is never, “What should I do, ideally, to solve this problem?” Instead it’s always, “How could I do things a little differently than last time for a little better results?”
The only thing you need to do is take one step: that’s productive enough.
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Productivity guilt
Productivity guilt is a mindset of feeling bad about not creating, achieving or working hard.
The Zeigarnik effect
This is the tendency to have “intrusive thoughts” about a task that we once started but didn’t finish.
It is in our human nature to finish off things that we start and we often hate having to leave a project unfinished.
Some people are very good at maintaining a detachment between their work and their outside life. For others (especially those indoctrinated in ‘life hacks’ and productivity tips), the guilt to be constantly doing something can be a real energy sucker.
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
Before comparing yourself to that guy over there, realize what he’s sacrificing.
If you’re feeling guilty about your lack of “productivity”, then you’re not going to be truly productive at all.
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Accepting boredom
Learning to live with more boredom makes it easier for you to really feel present in every aspect of your life: work, relationships, and whatever else you want to do with your time that doesn't inv...
How you define "productivity"
The way we define the concept of "productivity" really influences our perception.
For a lot of people, this word suggests something cold and corporate, that speaks about efficiency and becoming a robot.
The best productivity advice
It has to do with focus and allows us to accomplish everything we want to do in a smaller amount of time, so we have more time for what’s actually meaningful to us.
Because being able to focus on things, we see more meaning in them.
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What Deep Work Is
A process of performing “professional activities…in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve ...
Shallow work
The non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted, tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
Recognizing our limited willpower
...is the first element of deep work.
That means you won’t have the mental discipline to stay concentrated on a single task unless you prepare your mind and environment to it.
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