Summary: Your perceived value or worth should not be based in how productive you are or can be. Pushing yourself beyond your own limitations to maintain a level of productivity can lead to burnout. Sometimes you need to learn when to take a step back and take care.
This has been on my mind for a while now and only moved up to the front of my thinking as the current COVID-19 pandemic has affected 2020. A lot of things had to and needed to change for us to move forward and tackle the hand that the corona-virus has dealt us. A majority of companies were and still are adjusting to the working from home (WFH) environment, and there are a number of people that are used to doing a lot or multi-tasking.
People were asked to work from home, furloughed or worse laid off from their positions. This caused most of us to take a moment and reflect on what truly mattered in our lives and what we value. If you take a look through social media over the past 6 months, there has been a flourish of activity and people trying out new things and hobbies. The sudden interest in bread making was a favorite of mine because I love bread and carbohydrates as much as the next person. Everything front and ready to be showcased on a platform so followers could join someone on their journey in the discovery of their new hobby while quarantined at home. One thing that was apparent, all of this normal energy to produce results had now been challenged with looking for other avenues of production.
Learning something new or discovering a new passion is great. To be honest, unless you’re an a-typical or optimistic person, it was all very exhausting. Just because I may have all of this time on my hands to do something, doesn’t mean I should feel obligated to be productive with that time. So what if I just want to sit in my arm chair and watch movies all day? Does that mean my efforts or time is not as valuable as the next person? No. There are people who struggle with stress, depression, disabilities or hidden disabilities that face more guilt over the fact that they cannot be as productive as they would like compared against their able bodied counterparts.
Your worth as an individual is inherent and not based on how productive you are. Valuing productivity above all else can lead to an endless productivity feedback loop within yourself, because there is always some way that you can be more productive. Is your task or to-do list growing and shrinking without you ever seeming to accomplish everything on the list? Outside of major items throughout your day that need to be addressed, such as paying your bills or meeting realistic work goals or writing at least one page a day in a screenplay you’ve been outlining since December of last year, what things that you need to accomplish actually provide value to you and those around you.
Don’t see this as a get out of jail argument. If your living space needs to be cleaned or that biology project that came to life in your sink will start to form words, by all means clean your space. This is all meant to provide some clarity and allow you to take a moment, step back and truly assess what matters and what needs to get done.
