“I’m so far behind this week”
“I didn’t get anything done today”
“My list just keeps growing”
Sound familiar?
I like to think I stay positive and choose to see the good most times, but I do still struggle with these thoughts. Every. Single. Day.
In my ongoing attempt to share some of the struggles along with the wins, today I’m focusing on these “I’m falling behind” thoughts because they’ve been popping up way more than usual for me this week.
1/5
I’m a productivity “enthusiast”. There are lots of other words I was considering here, but I am choosing to be kinder to myself.
Professionally, I often slip into the habit of measuring my worth against the tasks I’ve completed. I know that’s not a great metric, and yet I still subconsciously do it anyway.
For better or worse, marking something off my list is a really effective motivator for me. So I need regular reminders that “the list” doesn't define me or my worth.
So here it is…
2/5
There’s so much in life that’s not captured in a todo list.
For example, this week I:
• got a lot of yard work done
• washed the car
• enjoyed a handful of walks both alone and with others on some unseasonably warm days (that photo below is from one, lookit that tree!)
• read most of a book
• had several really nice virtual meetings
• published a case study
• did a whole lot of outreach pursuing connections and leads
None of that was on my list, does that make them less important?
3/5
There’s so much to life that makes tasks less doable or less desirable in the moment.
For example:
• I was so tired I couldn’t focus for a couple days. I actually fell asleep at my desk mid-day, no amount of coffee helped.
• We had an unseasonable 80°F (26.6°C) Fall day, who can focus when it's that nice out?
• Was exceptionally social (LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, Mastodon) following leads & making connections.
All these made it less ideal for long-term focus tasks like blogging & coding.
4/5
TL;DR
• Just because it wasn’t “on the list” doesn’t mean it’s not still something important to do.
• Just because it is “on the list” doesn’t mean you’re going to be ready and able to do it when you planned.
I’m very tough on myself, and I’d imagine many of you are too.
So here’s your permission to do what has your attention, what matches your available energy, and what the current weather calls for.
If anyone complains tell them I said it was okay, I'll take care of it.
5/5
I ended up expanding on this in a blog post at https://stevenwoodson.com/blog/fighting-back-against-toxic-productivity/
@stevenwoodson *sigh* this hits home. I brought up at work recently that people are rarely at peak productivity for an extended period of time, it waxes and wanes and we need to account for that. We're not machines, life happens and if we don't take care of ourselves in the low times then the highs will be exceedingly rare.
@Jbasoo Absolutely agree, how was it received by folks at work?
When I was in a position of leadership where I mentored and was directly responsible for others, I mentioned this to my direct reports all the time. Hopefully convincing them it's okay to not be at 100% all the time and to feel free to take breaks and talk about things that are slowing them down.
Having the same conversations up the ladder was often more difficult.
@stevenwoodson My manager (CTO) was agreeable, pretty receptive. The CEO, however, has always pushed that developers need to be at peak productivity all the time and have an unreasonably high billable hour count. Being an agency, there's a lot chaos and inefficiency in management, which leads to inefficiency in development, however us devs end up taking the fall. Regardless of if the client was sold an unrealistic deadline, devs get blamed when it overruns.