Ali Hale wrote a provoking article on productivity over at Productive Flourishings. You should read it.
She writes:
When we get in a tangle and try to match up creativity with productiveness with busyness, it’s often because we’ve been taught to align productivity with outputs – particularlymeasurable outputs: words written, hours worked, widgets cranked.
But being productive isn’t about being able to point to items ticked off on a to-do list. It’s possible, indeed, easy, to be very busy and active without producing anything worthwhile. You could train yourself to type faster and write two thousand words an hour, but they’ll never be great literature; chances are, they’ll never even be publishable.
Creating a single stunning painting, or a single haunting piece of music, is far more “productive” than trying to make ten mediocre ones.
Being truly productive often means eschewing busyness. That may mean making sacrifices (financial or otherwise) for the sake of having the necessary space to create. It may mean being deliberately, even brazenly, counter-culture by insisting that more is not better, and by finding your own meaning rather than letting society dictate your life to you.
This is serious, powerful stuff. She totally reframes the meaning of productive and ripped me away from my to-do list.
Nice!
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Thanks for the link — I’m really glad this had an impact on you! It’s so easy to get caught up in being “productive” without really ever producing anything that’s important.
(By the way … it’s not obvious cos I don’t have a pic on Productive Flourishing, but I’m actually female — the “Ali” is short for “Alison”. It confuses a lot of folks, just thought I’d let you know!)
Hey Ali!
Thanks for the visit. I’ve updated the entry to reflect more accurately your gender.