At the start of the school year, I opened up Tik Tok bombarded with creators showing their productive days. In an attempt to escape, I went over to YouTube, only to find that my entire feed consisted of the same type of video. I could not get away from the overwhelming amount of Productive Day in My Life videos or aesthetically pleasing pictures of study set-ups on every single social media platform.
I saw all of these social media posts while sitting in my bed doing nothing but eating goldfish. Quite honestly, I felt worthless and unintelligent in comparison to these creators, despite not knowing them personally. Just because I saw a string of clips edited together from a random person, I somehow felt that I did not work hard enough, that I was not smart enough, and that I was a failure. In retrospect, this mentality is irrational, yet it is a mentality that so many people possess.
We have created a productivity culture in which we feel that we need to remain busy and productive at all times. This idea, so highly valued, creates an unhealthy and unnatural lifestyle. We are human beings, and we are not designed to work at all hours of the day, every day of the week, all year long.
As students here at Denison, we worked hard to get enrolled in such an academically rigorous institution, and we continue to work hard in the classes we are currently taking. We are bright, hard-working, dedicated students. Someone else’s level of productivity is not related to our worth, our value, or our intelligence.
But productivity is not inherently bad. Sometimes we need to be able to sit down and complete our assignments for a few hours. Nevertheless, the pressure we feel to be productive is more harmful than beneficial. Our mental health, happiness, and motivation all suffer when we succumb to this pressure, and it’s not worth it.
We deserve to take breaks, and we deserve to rest. We are allowed to take days off, and it is perfectly acceptable to do nothing for an entire day. Not only is it okay, but it should be more encouraged. If we continue to work our hardest without ever resting, we would burn out.
So, you may ask, how am I supposed to overcome the pressures set in place by productivity culture? Although I do not claim to know the ultimate answer to this question, changing your mindset and reconstructing the concept of productivity is a step forward. I have found that including rest in my definition of productivity has been of immense help. As someone who loves to write to-do lists and schedules every day, I have started adding rest to my to-do lists and into my schedule. These resting periods help me feel more energized when it comes time to complete my work.
Ultimately, we need to accept that we are humans and not robots. We cannot sustain a life of working all day, every day. Accept that you cannot be productive every day of your life, and learn to be okay with that. Work as hard as you can in all aspects of your life, but understand that sometimes the best and most productive thing you can do is rest.