👨💻 What is productivity anxiety?
And why does stressing ourselves out actually make us less productive?
Today’s newsletter is about Productivity Anxiety, a psychological stressor that can be highly destructive if left unchecked.
Productivity anxiety is stress that comes from the feeling that you’re not being productive enough.
It’s important to point out that stress is natural.
If our bodies didn’t release cortisol (the stress hormone) ahead of difficult situations, we would not have the motivation to get things done.
The problem with productivity anxiety is that it raises our stress so high that we are less capable of actually being productive! (see below)
I also want to introduce another useful & related concept:
Productivity Dysmorphia.
The term is adapted from “body dysmorphia.”
Body dysmorphia is the feeling of hyper-fixation on one’s body in a way that exaggerates a person’s flaws in their mind. (see below)
Productivity dysmorphia is the false internal perception that you’re not being productive enough.
People have been dealing with productivity anxiety for a long time, but I believe that the age of social media has brought on widespread feelings of productivity dysmorphia.
Even if you’re doing more work weekly than the average person, you can still feel like you’re useless and barely getting by.
Many people feel that the baseline activities we do on a daily or weekly basis are not enough.
For people with a 9-5 job, it could be this feeling:
“I’m upset because I’m not waking up early before work to exercise, learn a new language, or otherwise be productive.”
I find myself dealing with productivity anxiety very often.
Perhaps it’s because I’m self-employed and need to structure my own schedule.
My activities in a normal week look like this:
preparing for & giving four 1.5-hour lectures at Miami-Dade College, where I work as an adjunct professor
researching, writing, & editing three Daily Concept newsletters
editing & posting a blog for the Monetary Policy Institute Blog I’ve managed for 2.5 years
doing freelance writing projects for another client
Despite doing all this, I often (or, to be honest, usually) feel like I’m not doing enough.
I have a lot of long-term projects that I’m working on, including:
growing the Daily Concept into a successful digital media business
re-writing my Ph.D. and publishing it as a book
producing videos for the Daily Concept’s Instagram account.
And yet, the biggest barrier to me making progress on these projects is the stress from feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks I’ve given myself to do.
How can we deal with productivity anxiety?
The answer: caffeine.
Just kidding. If I knew the real answer, I probably wouldn’t be writing this newsletter.
Before going into solutions, it’s worth considering what some of the causes of productivity anxiety might be:
perfectionism
fear of failure
chronic procrastination
lack of high-quality rest
The first two are deeper psychological challenges that can’t be addressed or solved easily, so we’ll focus on the second two.
I have struggled with procrastination my entire life, so I know it’s a part of the problem for me.
Many people (myself included) use our smartphones as a way of procrastinating and turning our brains off.
But, the reality is that most of the time we spend on our phones is wasted time. (except when you’re reading the Daily Concept, of course)
If you know you’ve been wasting time, you’re more likely to feel guilty about being unproductive.
Ensuring that we allow ourselves the time & space to rest properly is also important for dealing with productivity anxiety.
If your rest involves laying down in bed to use your phone, you’re actually stimulating your brain when you should be allowing it to relax.
Tentative solutions
To conclude, I believe that our unhealthy relationships with our phones plays a key part in feelings of productivity dysmorphia & anxiety.
We don’t talk enough about media addiction and the way that it affects us.
To me, this is one of the greatest societal challenges of the 21st century.
Something I’ve done that helps me with feelings of productivity anxiety is to start my day with a to-do list and then write down all the tasks that I achieve during the day.
Even if I don’t get everything done, I can feel a small sense of satisfaction by looking back and seeing a full page of tasks I’ve accomplished.
I don’t do this every day, but I’m trying to improve.
And that’s all we can do.
If you have any thoughts about productivity anxiety and how to deal with it, please reply to this email and let me know!
Your faithful writer,
Dr. Dan Smith
ART OF THE DAY
Today’s Art of the Day is a poem about productivity anxiety by Rupi Kaur
