You Make the List
🤔 The danger of tying productivity to identity
What’s worse than not checking all the boxes on your to-do list?
Making “getting things done” the cornerstone of your identity.
These days, we treat productivity like a cardinal virtue. It’s a LinkedIn badge of honor I bet some people even include in their dating profiles:
“Adventure seeker. Dog lover. Productivity ninja.”
We view it as the righteous alternative to the vice of procrastination. But is it, really?
In Awaken Your Genius, Ozan Varol argues that…
“Busyness is contrived significance. It’s a form of laziness. It’s a way of moving fast but without direction. It’s a numbing agent people use to avoid looking within and panicking when they see what’s inside.”
Reflecting on his experience, Varol writes that “the fear of not doing enough was the fear of not being enough,” and that he tied his sense of accomplishment to how quickly he could clear his to-do list.
The soulless pursuit of productivity is a symptom of the same issue at the heart of procrastination: avoidance.
If you struggle with the go-go-gos, consider making another list. Write down a list of items that, if accomplished, will make you more worthy of acceptance and love.
After some time, I think you’ll find yourself sitting with a blank piece of paper.
There are no doubt things to be done. Important things. But you make the list, not the other way around.
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So true! I remember my days in business where productivity=identity. In fact the reward system was based upon this belief. The most soullessly productive received the greatest rewards. Who wouldn’t strive for this only to find that losing your soul wasn’t really worth it. Thanks again!