Productivity: A New Age Myth?

“Why are you wasting your weekends? You should be doing more yoga. You should be learning a new language. You should be writing a book. You should be filming a Udemy course. Learn how to be more productive with your time.”

These are lines I have heard a lot. Especially since the lockdown started. When I turned around and asked these ‘well-meaning’ people what they were doing to maximize productivity in their weekends, they would casually shrug it off saying they were busy with work; household chores; childcare or watching TV.

On the other hand, whenever I open Linkedin, my timeline is flooded with completion certificates of various skills. Everyone is ‘upskilling’ wildly, given the extra time they have on their hands. It is also important to flaunt this productivity meter on social networks. Very few know if they will actually need these skills in their daily jobs/careers.

YouTube videos, Udemy courses, Google Podcasts, Audible reading lists, Exercise tracking apps, Bullet journals — these are all the concepts I have followed blindly because I got carried away by all the digital influencers I followed.

Yet, I seemed to be getting more and more lost. It seemed like the more I did, the more there was to do. Always. 24/7/365.

Everyone around was almost making me feel guilty if I so much as wasted a Sunday afternoon in a nap or just re-reading a favourite book.

Till one day it just overwhelmed me. I unsubscribed, unfollowed, deactivated and deleted every productivity app/site ever. I decided to stop running on the rat treadmill. In the process of cleansing, I found that most of these influencers I was following were either American or subscribed to the western concept of time, value and productivity. I had fallen for it too, briefly in my series of 365 daily videos.

In turn, I thought back to my mother - she worked ten times harder and got 110% of her work done — with time to spare to knit sweaters for us or share night time stories. Universally, moms have found time to go to work and care for us and make sure we passed our Math tests and did our homework correctly. Now that my brother and I are out of the house, she finds time and energy to love and be loved by our cat, Coco. She is also creating jewellery pieces at home — completely self-taught from Pinterest and YouTube.

How are mothers so productive without having to be ‘productive’? Did they use a bullet journal? Or did they drink lemon water and coffee first thing in the morning?

If I even suggest something similar to a vision board or minimalism or intermittent fasting, they would drive me out of the room with their brooms.

What was different? I asked my mother one day in a call. She said — “The problem is that you all have too many expectations from life. It is good to be ambitious — it is good to dream — it is good to want to improve yourself. It is not good to be ignorant of your limits. Or look down upon the power of circumstance and destiny. You wake up every day, follow a routine but do all the chores happily, try to do good in everything you do and accept the love and care of people around you. No one can have it all. Your generation does not want to understand that. Also, there is nothing wrong in being great in one thing and mediocre in everything else.”

I can’t say that I agree with my mother completely. She never faced the FOMO of social media. Yet, I can’t help but agree that she has lived a full life.

My mother is productive every day, even at the age of 60. She doesn’t need to upload a Udemy course, sell her jewellery on an Instagram page, write a book, create 20 YouTube videos or travel the world by quitting her job to make her life matter.

Somewhere, this is what productivity is. Does your life matter? Does it make you happy? Does it make you want to wake up tomorrow with a smile? Does it make a difference in someone else’s life?

So do what you have to do. Just don’t try to do it all. If you can, then it's amazing!

Otherwise, take your own sweet time. If it is meant to be, it will be. If it is not, then something else will come by and fill the vacuum. None of us really know what we are meant to do on this beautiful planet. So let’s do what we can and start by doing the small things with love and kindness.

Stay Safe, Stay Home.

Cheers, Annie.

About The Author:

Hi There! This is Annesha - love going by the name Annie. I am the 'Queen of the Nerds'. Communications creator and content marketer by day at MoneyTap. YouTuber on weekends. Love reading, watching TV series and discussing why Benedict Cumberbatch and biriyani are classics. Have developed great pseudo stalking skills on Linkedin. DM and share what else you want Anniecast to cover in my next episode.

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"Be Yourself. Everyone else is already taken" - Oscar Wilde.