Productivity Chaos and Order Equilibrium
If you have ever heard about imposter syndrome, you know how disastrous it can get with all of its negative effects from having negative thoughts about yourself, negative thinking, being confused, and low self-esteem AND -Productivity. However, there is another convex side to the mirror of productivity. The above-marked statement holds for me. I came through this through a friends’ on her blog (Check:https://asbeyondwords.wordpress.com/) I had always wanted to do everything, every day. And lesson learned hard, to the extent that I even wanted to excel at all the things. A part of this still holds but I have learned that you can’t do everything.
You should NOT do everything.
I suffer from the hyper-productivity syndrome if there’s a word for it. Or let’s say the closest word, I found for the whole churn of feelings on Google. Thankfully enough, not to the extent that I would show every activity I do on social media but far enough so that I feel miserable if I am not doing anything. The regret in my head touches multiple peaks when I don’t do at least three activities that I intended to do. I have plans in my head when I want to be as random as I can be and when not when they get distorted (except while traveling) the air becomes thicker. Once I finish a task, I want to do another one or at least have something on my mental track to do. I will be feeling tired and then feel angry at feeling tired. I will want to write every week and then feel miserable about missing my deadline. And this is not about the productivity in the office, which is something expected from all of us and is a completely different thing than what I’m talking about. It’s personal productivity. I’d want to go out and then feel like I could have attended a course online rather than being here. This leads to further mental exhaustion. If you ever ask me, what am I doing, and if ever my answer sounds like “Nothing” or “I am doing nothing” I would be the one more shocked than you to realize that I must do something.
“Hey, what are you watching?”
“Hey, what you are reading these days?”
“Hey, what are you into these days?”
All of these questions in general are monstrous to me. I must do something. The better my answer to these questions, the better I feel about myself. I have been trying, lately how to train my brain not to feel like a halter-tack all the time.
It’s analogous to the Equilibrium we once studied during Chemistry classes-which could never be achieved. There is no ideal state. The state of equilibrium is a hoax, you can’t reach one side of the state and you can’t say it’s always in an absolute equal on both of the sides. You only assume that it holds true at a certain nanosecond. That is true for almost everything on earth. And when the question is between order and productivity, it’s your brain that suffers. Maybe, sanity loss here in form of energy being released.
It’s an art to enjoy doing nothing on days and still feel very happy about it. I appreciate you if you could do that. Come to think of it, productivity is considered as a parameter to be better than others or as an achievement. A lot of people suffer from the fear that they are wasting their time and obsess overdoing something, and later showing that off on social media which triggers the bullet on people like me. We finish a show, we post it. Or could be about a travel story, a hotel room, a dress, an outing….anything. A lot of times it’s out of the unprecedented social pressure rather than a corner of genuine appreciation/review/no brainer kind of thing. I was naïve to believe that learning is quantitative rather than qualitative and one must not drag anything beyond a certain point. That certain point is for you to decide and modify it if you feel like it.
Divide if it is really important to do and why? And any reason is enough to keep you going.
Take a step every day.
Learn to let go, enjoy and be easy on yourself.
Learn to stop, watch, breathe and then work. With acknowledgment comes peace.
And as quoted in one of my favorite books, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom “Accept who you are; and revel in it.”
