What is Productivity Guilt (and how to deal with it)

In the last post I spoke about how Covid-19 made us do a lot of things that we probably didn’t want to do, take up a lot of responsibilities and obligations – often exceeding our usual limit – to feel like we had some autonomy and control over our lives. On further reading and interacting with some of my readers, I came across a topic called Productivity Guilt

Productivity Guilt is an internal feeling of dissatisfaction due to not being able to, or not being engaged in work, in situations when working is not the reasonable or required thing to do. Examples:

• Feeling guilty about not being able to work late at night because you’re tired after a long day
• Feeling guilty about not being able to work when you’re sick
• Feeling guilty about taking breaks in between tasks.

While there are articles that say Guilt can trigger productive behavior (something that I don’t personally agree with), there is another closely related feeling that is often triggered by guilt -> Shame. Shame is not only unpleasant, it can often be painful and demeaning – not to mention that it creates a loop of guilt and shame that turns into rut we often get stuck in. Feeling guilty or shameful for not being able to work when working isn’t the reasonable or required thing to do can be damaging and harmful to our long term productivity overall. This issue is made worse by mulling over those thoughts.

Productivity Guilt can lead to procrastination, or burnout. While neither of these are desirable, burnout is much harder to deal with and has much more destructive effects on us. To avoid productivity guilt, we must understand where it comes from:

1. Narratives we creates for ourselves
   • We often tell ourselves that in order to be valuable to our peers and superiors, we have to work our hardest. If we don’t do that we’ll end up being hated and disappointing others. This narrative is not true. Taking some time off, being unavailable or even being distracted is human – and you won’t be prosecuted for being human. This narrative comes from a place of unclear expectations and undefined boundaries.
2. Having an individualistic view of productivity
   • If you work in a team then you may have days when you get involved with helping a colleague or participating in the group, and this may lead you to not being able to finish your own to-do list. It is important to realize that your individual to-do list is not the only space you can be productive, and that being productive doesn’t need to be an individualistic endeavor.
3. Being influenced by unreliable, unqualified and misguided individuals
   • ‘Growth Mindset’, ‘Griniding’, ‘Hustle’ and more are keywords used by those that do not understand productivity. This crowd that operates through photos of lions and ambiguous quotes and tips do more harm than good when it comes to being productive.
4. Focusing on the gap between ‘have’ and ‘have not’
   • When we look at our to-do list, it’s often to look at what we need to do next, and not what we’ve done so far. If you have a list of 7 tasks, and you’ve only been able to get through 4 of them by the end of the day, you’ll probably feel sad about not being able to hit the last three.
5. Comparison with others
   • In the age of social media and professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, it is easy to feel stressed out or unfulfilled by looking at the achievements of others. A constant feed of comparative points makes us feel inadequate. It’s important to understand that what we see is backed by many more factors like luck, connections, other such factors.
6. Compulsive Busyness (Toxic Productivity)
   • This is similar to toxic productivity. It’s the state of taking on obligations and commitments in order to feel like we have some control over our lives. This leads us to feel anxious while we aren’t working and makes us feel like we need to be busy all of the time. It is important to remember that being busy does not equal being productive. For more about this, read this article
7. Glorifying achievement, villainizing laziness
   • Since birth we have been conditioned into thinking that being busy is good, and being lazy is bad. Lazy is seen as negative thing, whereas it is a completely normal human experience that is often unavoidable, and sometimes healthy. Being constantly busy on the other hand is never healthy. Life is not and should not be filled with working, what’s the point of it if you cannot enjoy a lazy afternoon with your loved ones without feeling guilty.

The following strategies can help you rework your relationship with productivity to feel less guilt, shame and get out of ruts if you may ever fall into one:

1. Control the Narrative
   • Telling ourselves that people will start to hate us if we don’t finish our tasks is neither true nor good for our productivity. In a more realistic sense, most of our peers, colleagues or superiors will understand that tasks get delayed when people are busy. They’ve been there too.
2. Broadening your view about productivity
   • Your productivity isn’t just what you do for yourself, every time you help someone with a task – whether in a big way or a small way, you are adding to productivity. Start Asking how you’ve contributed, instead of what you’ve done for yourself.
3. Controlling your information diet
   • The ‘Growth-Mindset’ crowd will tell you to grow and prosper but their strategies are vague, unclear and usually dumb. ‘Set Goals’ isn’t a strategy, ‘Wake up while they’re sleeping’ is not a good strategy. Growth requires investment and clear goals, influences and ‘Motivational Speakers’ just push you to GO, and don’t tell you where to go, this leads to you not going anywhere. Ultimately resulting in guilt. Becoming more mindful about what you have accomplished so far.
4. Setting clear expectations and boundaries
   • Have a conversation with your colleagues and superiors about how much work you can do and what you shouldn’t be expected to do. This will help you control the narrative as well, it will also help you avoid taking up obligations that you aren’t comfortable with
5. Planning and scheduling your days reasonably
   • It’s important to set reasonable and feasible goals for yourself, don’t try to bite off more than you can chew, setting a reasonable to do list is more important than setting an impressive one. Setting a reasonable to do list will help you mitigate feelings of guilt and shame, and make you more productive in the long run.

> ## A reasonable To-Do List is better than an impressive one.

Whether you’re in school, college or at work, there are plenty of situations where you may feel like you’re not doing enough but people only realize they’re doing too much when it’s too late. It’s important to remember that your self-worth does not stem from your productivity, and that being lazy, or taking a break is an important, essential and unavoidable part of being productive.

I hope this post brought you value and helped you in some way, share your take-aways and experiments with this idea in the comments below. If you think this post deserves more attention then please consider sharing it with your friends and subscribing to this blog. Next post in two weeks. Have a great day!