How productive do we need to be?
Staying productive is one of the hardest tasks to accomplish. Others may disagree, but as someone who has to impulsively complete tasks in order to get them done, it’s exhausting to live with. Questioning how productive you are increases once you witness everyone around you doing a bunch of things every day. Let's say you’re out to dinner, sitting at a booth, and two people behind you at a different booth are chatting about their day and how much they’ve got done. It’s haunting to hear about if you’re not as productive.
Wouldn’t it be dope to switch lives with someone for a day to test their productivity? I’ve thought about this quite a lot when it comes to staying productive. For instance, imagine swapping lives with an A-list celebrity for that day? I’d imagine this thought running through any fan of that celebrity, but looking past that fan mindset, would their way of being productive surpass our own, or would it all just be forced due to circumstances? Circumstances involving them being born into fame or something just as dramatic. Their schedules are bound to be packed, increasing how productive they’ll be on a day-to-day basis.
Diving into the science of productivity, productivity is a complex interplay of neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science. Knowing this, it's clear that staying productive isn’t just about working harder but instead, it's about working smarter by aligning with how the brain naturally functions. By leveraging single-tasking, ultradian rhythms, stress management, and habit formation, you can optimize performance without burning out. I use this theory to battle against my low productivity at times. Staying productive is no easy task after all.
In a New York Times article covering productivity, Adam Grant (the writer) pointed out how “Productivity is fueled by raising attentional filters to keep unrelated or distracting thoughts out. But creativity is fueled by lowering attentional filters to let those thoughts in.” This got me thinking about why it’s hard for individuals like myself to stay productive. I dabble in creative projects such as songwriting, drawing, and singing that distract me from what I need to do completely. Hopefully, this struggle will change for me and others that may be going through the same situation sometime in the future.
