Stop Feeling Guilty for Not Being Productive

Productivity… probably my least favorite word in the English dictionary. 

Not necessarily for its meaning, but more for the way it’s been preached upon you and I as the savior for our otherwise dull and meaningless lives. 

If you’re reading this article, then you’re probably sick of it too.

That guilt you feel for not being productive is being entirely forced upon you by an assumption that productivity = an end goal of happiness and fulfillment. 

But for most people, this just isn’t true. 

We’ve developed an addiction to the idea of being productive for the sake of being productive. 

But if your goals aren’t clear enough, I guarantee you’re lost somewhere in this performance productivity loops.

I also guarantee this crappy loop comes with the following side-effects: feeling a bit useless, increasingly anxious, creatively blocked, and somehow overworked yet entirely unfulfilled. 

Let’s change that. 

Why productivity isn’t the goal

The biggest problem with productivity lies in its definition.


Productivity: the effectiveness of productive effort, especially in industry, as measured in terms of the rate of output per unit.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve decided to attribute words used to define the output of machines to humans.

I’m going to take a wild guess and just assume that when you’re trying to be productive, you’re not actually making things in a factory.

That means the purpose of your production isn’t linear (in terms of number of units produced), that means it’s entirely self-defined. 

Productivity is objective when applied to machines, but it’s entirely subjective when applied to humans, because our output simply cannot be defined by numbers and speed. 

If J.K Rowling was more productive, she could’ve written 7 more Harry Potter books. 

But if she wrote 7 more Harry Potter Books, then all 14 of them would’ve been a lot weaker than what she actually released.

You feel guilty for not being productive because you’ve been told that constantly doing more and generating a higher output will get you closer to the thing that will make your life better. 

But most of the time, this weird obsession with doing more and doing it faster just completely detracts from the stuff that actually fulfills us. 

Doing nothing is not a waste of time

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass is by no means a waste of time.”

John Lubbock

Do you know what will give you a better life than productivity? 

Rest. 

If you’re constantly trying to be productive, it means your mind is always on. 

Creating something great requires a lot of thinking, and the best thoughts often come when your mind is at rest. 

These are the shower thoughts and the thoughts you’re having when you’re laying in bed trying to get to sleep. 

I guarantee JK Rowling’s most productive days weren’t the days she spent writing, they were the days she spent thinking – thinking about the plot, the characters and how everything was going to link together.

The product would never have come without the space needed to think about its creation. 

Taking this rest should not be a decision we make, because it’s simply a requirement. 

Creativity and production come and go with the seasons, and I know this is especially true for women. 

For myself, there are weeks when I seem to have endless ideas, and am constantly writing down my thoughts for future blog posts. 

Other weeks – nothing. 

We need to remember that just like every other living thing on this planet, we change with the seasons. 

One day your creative juices and your appetite for work will be flowing, the next day you’ll feel like doing absolutely nothing. 

If you feel guilty for not being productive on those days that your body is telling you to rest, then you’re literally just fighting against the nature of what it means to be a living thing. 

You can’t feel guilty for that. 

You’re not here to be productive

It’s also important to remember that you and I are going to die. 

I could try and tell you when, but I wouldn’t have any sources to back it up, so you’ll just have to take a guess yourself. 

So if our goal isn’t to stop ourselves from dying, then what are we actually working towards?

Well, each one of us gets to decide that for ourselves. 

But that then begs the question, why should we be productive?

The ultimate end goal is the same for all of us, and if this performative productivity loop we find ourselves in doesn’t make us feel good in the moment, then what’s the point?

You weren’t put on this planet to be efficient.

You were literally just put here to live. 

To hang around under trees and swim and love and frolic with the boys, and all the other stuff that actually makes your life good. 

For me, none of that stuff can be measured.

No one else’s definition of productivity can be applied to your life, and it’s incredibly freeing when you realize that. 

There’s a difference between rest and procrastination

This is the caveat. 

There is a huge difference between intentional rest and avoidance.

Avoiding something you know you should be doing isn’t the move. 

All of my readers are clever (I know that for a fact), so I guarantee if you’re reading this, then you already know what this thing is. 

These are the things that are clear to you – the piece of work you know you have to do, the conversation you know you need to have, or the change you know you need to make. 

Every time you put that off, the anxiety builds, the hole you’re finding yourself in seemingly gets bigger, and the change needed to get out of it gets even scarier. 

No self-improvement, habit-building, motivation-inducing productivity book or TedTalk is going to make doing this thing easier. 

You know yourself well, and I guarantee you’ll know the difference between wanting to rest or wanting to avoid. 

If it’s the latter, stop putting it off. 

But if you’re tired and can’t really be bothered, then stop feeling so guilty about it. 

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About the Author: Jack Waters writes to help people reclaim their attention, find direction, and build a life they genuinely enjoy.