By Trang Nguyen - PhD Candidate Amsterdam UMC
For a long time, I struggled with productivity. It was such an elusive concept, like my own shadow, so close yet always beyond my reach. Over time, I grew to despise it, partly due to my awareness of the soul-crushing late-stage capitalism. It was a love-hate relationship. I pretended to be wise and zen, but deep down, I craved it. So I could feel good about myself, and secretly superior to others. Either way, it was the center of my life — the male protagonist while I was — if you ever watched Korean dramas — the second female lead who concocted all kinds of schemes to get his attention. To no avail.
I remembered sitting in front of the computer for 8 hours, completely paralyzed at the influx of (unimportant) emails, tasks I should have finished last week, 4 missed calls from my parents, and a half-written message to my boss asking if we could cancel our check-in. 8 out of 10 times, I never sent the message. If I had just tried a little bit harder, my love for science would suddenly return and as the saying goes, love conquers all, right? Wrong. My day ended with zero achievements and a stomach full of guilt-flavored potato chips.
My attempt to counter-attack this was planning. If only my day was well thought out. If only I knew exactly what I would do at any given moment. Shitting shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes and daydreaming was reserved for bedtime. At exactly 10:30, I’d go for a 15-minute walk, followed by a 5-minute snack that I’d prepared at 21:30 the night before. This was my secret to productivity, I just needed to follow this regimen and I would never feel stuck or overwhelmed again. Sounds simple enough. The only catch? If anything went slightly wrong at any given point, the rest of my day would crumble. And you guessed it, the bus was never on time.
So I planned again and this time, it would be different. It wasn’t. So I planned again. My best friends were Ted talks and self-help books, each of which claimed to be the ultimate guide to productivity. Every week, I had a new schedule. Every week, I found a new way to disappoint myself. Despite constantly brainstorming about how I could optimize my day, iterations after iterations, the model never converged. It felt like a full-time job. I was so busy preparing for my life that I never got to live it.
Eventually, I gave up on productivity. At least the version that I knew of. After all, I was never able to Pomodoro my way out of this feeling that I had so much potential to be extraordinary but my lack of focus and determination rendered me mediocre.
Growing up, I was different from my peers but I never felt like I was failing. I was brilliant and focused. I knew in my heart what productivity should look like because I was the living proof of it. I was a Silicon Valley tech bro alternating between 2 shirts but for a different reason (I was poor). Cal Newport could have used me as an example of his deep work principles, alongside his laundry list of all the privileged white men to make his book look more inclusive. But that’s a conversation for another day. The point is, I was genuinely productive, proud and happy. So what went wrong?
If I am completely honest with myself, the answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing went wrong. Life happened. I grew up. Things changed. So did the manifestations of productivity. I didn’t use the word “definition” and there’s a reason for that.
Productivity is the intuition and ability to act in one’s best interests, short or long term, within one’s constraints, at any given moment in time.
If it sounds vague, that’s because it is. Each person has to figure this out for themselves. And the answer they may have for today may not be true for tomorrow. When I was still in school, I did not have to worry about basic needs. My biggest concerns were a specific Math problem, and my love confession to a boy. I spent days and nights reading, questioning my teachers’ questions, and answering their answers with more questions. In other words, I was doing what I enjoyed doing the most.
Now that I’m much older with actual life responsibilities, my life is filled with other (much less interesting) worries, like what if the rice cooker gets on fire. My parents are older so I think about them more often, fears of losing them occasionally creeping in. Bones have matured, I can’t sit in one place for too long. Most importantly, I no longer enjoy working 10 hours a day. It gains me a quick pat on the shoulder but robs me of my mental and physical well-being. It no longer serves my interests, short or long term. It is no longer the manifestation of productivity.
So what is? It depends. It may be writing a post about productivity itself. It may be finally going to the loo after a long meeting. It may be being so engrossed in a project as if time didn’t exist. It may be nothing at all. I don’t know what is considered productive until it comes to me and I surrender to it.
Then you may ask, what if you don’t ever want to work, and you get nothing done? I’d say, have a little more faith in yourself. Unless you are experiencing medical problems or extenuating life circumstances that literally prohibit you from functioning (in which case, it is out of your control), trust that your body knows better. Homeostasis is an evolutionarily conserved biological process. After 2 bags of chips, you probably will want to eat something more nourishing. After 2 hours of doom-scrolling, you probably will want to go out for some fresh air. After 2 days of procrastination, you probably will find the strength (or panic, which is also fine) to complete work. You just have to learn the cues, and trust them.
This new perspective of productivity does not guarantee that you will get more work done because that’s not the point. It’s not another trick or hack to make you less human. However, it may relieve some of the guilt, the shame, the resistance, which takes up a significant amount of time and energy, so you can actually spend it on what you want or need to do. Some, but not all because these feelings are an inherent part of life, and trying to get rid of them would be ironically the most unproductive endeavor.
[To be continued.]
Do you recognize yourself in this article? The PhD advisors are here for you. Get in touch with us for a consultation (phdadvisor@amsterdamumc.nl).