Try fulfillment instead of productivity

“Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.” - James Clear

Language is powerful. When using language to describe who and what we are, we’re sculpting a version of ourselves in our own vision—whether it’s accurate or not.

One of the adjectives that many people use to describe the person they want to be is: productive. Productive can mean many different things to different people, but it typically boils down to producing or achieving something significant to that person. Whether it’s cleaning the house or staying on top of work emails, being productive is simply getting things done.

Productive isn’t a bad word in and of itself. It feels great to describe a day as being productive—you got things done! The problem lies in that there is rarely a middle ground between being productive and unproductive. It’s a binary adjective where few people would describe themselves living a “kind of productive” life. You either completed a task, or you didn’t. This societal expectation to be the ideal of productivity that hustle culture demands doesn’t leave much room for error. An inevitable failure to be productive can lead to not meeting up to the expectation of your idealized self, which can aggravate stress, anxiety, and other problems a good portion of us have.

A more flexible but oft-forgotten adjective is fulfilling. To live a fulfilling life, you can develop your skills and character to match whatever you think fulfilling can be. This isn’t checking items off of a list. It’s striving to become the best version of yourself, however squishy that version of yourself may be. With this slight reframing, being productive is only a part of being fulfilled and self-care being another.

While crushing your to-do list is often fulfilling, so can a day of rest. Simply getting in touch with a friend, catching up on the latest streaming series, or preparing meals for your family can bring fulfillment to your life. It no longer matters if a day is productive or not, you can fill every day with valuable fulfilling things. Avoiding relaxing hobbies because you feel like you have to be productive all the time is counterproductive.

Think about what fulfills you. If you have the opportunity to do something that you are passionate about, your time in this endeavor should be thought of as fulfilling rather than productive or not productive. Even hobbies can turn into a chore if you’re too goal-oriented about them or you feel like you need to do it a certain way.

It’s common to worry more about wasting time than simply doing. Instead of focusing and fretting about how many productive hours, days, and years you get out of life, look at having fulfilling ones instead.