The Trend of Productivity

7/26/2024

silver iMac with keyboard and trackpad inside room
silver iMac with keyboard and trackpad inside room

How is it that the end of the year is already less than six months away?

With the end of summer approaching soon and back-to-school shopping beginning, I'm sure many people will begin to look at their goals for the year and go into overdrive to try to complete them in time. Perhaps they're making up for lost time because life got in the way and took precedence over their goals or maybe despite what was accomplished it doesn't feel like enough.

I came up with the idea for this article several months ago and it seems just as relevant now as it did at the beginning of the year. You see, I had been spending most of my time learning a new skill set and trying to master it well enough to be usable for a project. Namely, a webcomic that I'm creating. I spent hours on end day after day sitting at my computer creating 3d models, only to feel like time was passing too quickly with nothing to show for. During a rare break to do some online networking, I came across a picture of someone's workstation as they bragged about “getting shit done”. It shouldn't have bothered me, but the more I thought about the many posts, articles, and interviews dedicated to being productive, the more it did.

Obviously, there is truth in the statement that you have to work hard to achieve your dreams. Only a fool would deny that. But over the years, I feel like being productive has become less about time management and persistence and more about bragging rights. The way being productive is perceived now is foreign to me. For me, being productive has never been something to be proud of. It's a necessity on a good day and a precursor to fear and anxiety on a bad day. It reminds me how much of a failure I am. Even if I spend hours writing, if all of it isn't worthy of the page, then it doesn't count as being productive. I think productivity can be an unhealthy trend that gives the false expectation that the more time you put into something the faster you will achieve it.

But life isn't a productivity race. He who runs fastest doesn't always get there first, and neither does he who runs without stopping. The winners here, minus the odd exceptions, are the ones who run only as far as they can each day. They know their limits. It's not about working all day, every day. It's about having relationships, visiting family, learning new hobbies, and having a day job that will pay your bills, all without feeling like a failure. While fitting in time to work on your craft. But not your bedtime, your gym time, or when you should be cooking a healthy meal. Cause while we can do that, how long can we maintain it? How long will our bodies function on less and less sleep? Sure, it's the price we pay to realize our dreams. But your dreams will take longer than you think. It's the rare few we hear about who strike gold early on, but the majority of us need to keep pushing on. And what good is accomplishing your dream if you hate who you've become along the way? Or if you've neglected your health to the point of problem.

This isn't me saying not to put effort into accomplishing your dreams, because no one is going to just show up at your door offering you the job. You have to be realistic about how much time you have to offer and how much time the projects you are working on take. Don't let unrealistic expectations cloud what is actually feasible for you personally to do each day. Don't let the trend of having to be productive stop you from living life.

Maybe that's what people mean when they say that you have to have persistence, that you have to be willing to wait. Not that you need to be able to keep working until you get there. But that you need to be able to live a life while you're waiting to live THE life.