Look up the word “productivity” in a thesaurus and synonyms include “abundance,” “potency,” richness,” and “yield.” Sounds positive and something to strive for, right? No wonder many of us constantly look for ways to improve our productivity.
“One of the strongest reasons that people are so focused on productivity is because it makes us feel good about ourselves,” says Israa Nasir, author of Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More. “It’s a very tangible cause and effect. We can make our mind feel that if I do this, I’ll feel good about myself.”
Recognizing Toxic Productivity
Like all good things, productivity can have a dark side, especially when it becomes a virtual hamster wheel. “Productivity can create an imbalance in your life when it’s the only thing that matters,” says Nasir. “It’s the fastest way to burn out.”
Productivity also turns unhealthy when it’s the only way you feel validation and your sense of self is too tied to it, says Nasir. “This is when you’re not able to see yourself as a whole, multifaceted human,” she explains. “You only see yourself through the lens of the outcomes that you can achieve. External achievements are so conditional to life circumstances, and it can be emotionally dangerous to put all of your self-worth eggs in the basket of productivity.”
A third way productivity becomes toxic is when it’s not aligned with your core values. Instead, your productivity goals are an inherited checklist from society or family expectations. “You’re doing all the things, putting time and effort into it, but you’re not feeling fulfilled or satisfied because it’s not really aligned with what you want to do,” says Nasir.
Three common habits contribute to toxic productivity:
Habit One: Overcommitting
The first thing people do is overcommit. It can be considered a positive trait to fill up your calendar—schedule back-to-back meetings, fill up your evenings, and squeeze in calls, moving from one thing to another. However, this mentality can quickly become unhealthy, says Nasir.
“We think it’s because we’re hustling and we’re movers and shakers, but it’s really being the hamster on the wheel of doing,” she says.
Habit Two: Succumbing to Emotions
Another toxic habit is an inability to regulate emotions. An example of this habit is feeling guilty about enjoying free time. You might think, “I shouldn’t sleep in,” or “I shouldn’t watch TV,” explains Nasir. Instead of regulating the emotion of guilt and sitting with it or taking a break, you look for a “productive” task to fill the time.
Nasir says this often stems from growing up in a household where you had a lot of extracurriculars, such as sports or clubs, that focused on achievement. “Guilt is an action-oriented emotion,” she says. “When we feel like we should do something with the time, the way to alleviate guilt is to act.”
Resting can also activate an unwanted identity of being a slacker. This can trigger shame, which Nasir says is also a strong motivator.
“You don’t want to be the person who’s not doing something,” she says. “Usually, we jump into avoidance to process shame. What better way to avoid an emotion than by busying yourself? It motivates us to skip rest, relaxation, and just being.”
Habit Three: Multitasking
The third toxic productivity habit is doing more than one thing at a time. However, multitasking can quickly lead to overwhelm.
“Multitasking has a very high cognitive load with how much energy your brain is expending to process information,” says Nasir. “There is no true way to multitask. We think we’re doing multiple things at the same time; but at the cellular level, our brain is switching between tasks really fast, and it becomes very taxing.”
The risks of toxic productivity
Most of us are willing to accept the toxic side effects of productivity, thinking that they’re the norm. However, the fallout from these habits could impact your physical wellbeing, emotional health, and relationships. You will end up feeling tired, empty and burned out if you don’t balance it with internal motivation and validation, says Nasir.
Toxic productivity habits are often developed over a long period of time and have become ingrained. As a result, Nasir recommends changing them by starting with micro habits. “Come in with what’s easiest, and the lowest barrier to entry,” she says.
Developing New Healthy Habits
One thing to try is taking an audit of what you do every week, and practice under-committing one thing. “What that does is free up space for you to have emotional exploration about what is really driving your productivity,” says Nasir.
Another new habit to form is to build a practice of self-reflection, checking in with yourself each morning or week to reflect on why you do the things you do. “Most people who are on the productivity wheel, or what I call the productivity paradox, are on autopilot,” says Nasir. “Autopilot is a big problem, and it happens because we don’t have self-awareness. We’re not regularly checking in with ourselves.”
Nasir also recommends monotasking at least one thing once a day. Start small. “A lot of people watch TV and scroll at the same time,” she says. “Your brain is going between processing the TV and your social media, and it’s very unnerving. You feel a little more fried afterwards instead of relaxing.”
Other ways to monotask include putting down your phone when you’re having a conversation with someone or dedicating time for email and closing your inbox when you’re done.
Nasir admits that she once struggled with toxic productivity habits. “I was unfamiliar with the joys of having more time and not being [scheduled] back-to-back,” she says. “I thought being ambitious means being stressed out all the time.”
But toxic productivity can lead to burn out, which triggers our stress hormones. Nasir says at the extreme, you can develop chronic heart disease and autoimmune conditions. You can also start languishing, disassociating from your life.
“You’re not really depressed, but you’re not very actively engaged in your life,” she says. “One of the biggest byproducts of productivity for the sake of productivity is that we’re not in service of passion, purpose, or value. We all deserve to live engaged lives; lives that we feel excited about and have some hand in designing.”
By changing small habits, you can start to experience the joy and ease of being instead of just doing. And you can prolong your productivity in a way that’s much more sustainable.
