my obsession with productivity will no longer rob me of my joy
how do you measure a year? in the busy, the boring, the terrible, the great. in joy, love, and many different, beautiful seasons.
Amber B. Garma
28 December, 2024 — i am back in my hometown. it is the eighth day of my work-imposed holiday break. i have been reaching productivity levels never before seen, consistently on top of my reading, my journaling, my work, my writing, my passion projects, my year-end preparations, my family time, hell, even my social life! just this morning, i went to the gym for the second day in a row! as i walked through the front door with sore legs and a ravenous appetite, i felt a rush of happiness i hadn’t felt in a very long time. simon sinek just explained serotonin to me in my morning reading session — it’s the chemical our body releases when we accomplish things. i felt lots of it right then.
but what came after was something i didn’t expect. it was a slower, stronger wave of acceptance that i might never have a day like this again. at least, not in the next few weeks. maybe not even in the next few months.
there are only five days between christmas and new year. five in-between days where time is ours to shape and configure — to cut up any which way we like because our work chats don’t buzz and we aren’t anxiously awaiting zoom meetings. the in-between days are an idyllic, almost make-believe season of our lives, placed conveniently on the last days of the year for us to fall exasperatedly into. the seasons that follow, however, are much different.
january might be a month-long manic monday, working after hours to keep up with new year’s resolution-fueled colleagues. in june, all my travel plans might finally make it out of the group chat, and i might be jetting off from the beaches of Siquijor to the faraway mountains of Tanay. september might break me like it’s had a history of doing, and weeks may pass before i can get myself to open a journal and confront my feelings. unlike the in-between days, the seasons of life are complex, imbalanced, unpredictable, and difficult to control. this is difficult to cope with for someone like me, whose day to day happiness depends on how well i stick to my routines and to-do lists. but if 2024 has taught me anything, it’s that good things happen when i let go a little, and separate myself from the idea that a good day is a fully optimized, highly controlled, productive day. if i keep obsessing over productivity above all, the many beautiful seasons of my life might just pass me by.
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i don’t understand how some people can be bored. i’ve personally never been bored. only when it’s socially unacceptable to do anything other than sit and listen (i’m looking at you, Sunday mass). in my eyes, a day with no agenda (better yet, a pre-determined period of days with no agenda) is the equivalent of a shiny Christmas present, because it’s mine to fill up with a bunch of little tasks and projects, plotted to the hour so i’m sure i make the most of my only free day. my obsession with making days as productive as possible have admittedly pushed me to do a lot of things in life that i am proud of, like writing a full-length novel at ten years old, or getting accepted to a conference because i squeezed in my application on an already busy day. but it has also led me to do things that i’m less proud of, like shutting myself up in one room to layout a Notion spread while my whole family watches Netflix in the other. or only half-listening during a catch-up with a friend because i’m worried i’ll get home later than expected and leave my last task for the day untouched.
the people close to me know that i have to command my brain to stop thinking. often with a signal my mother came up with when i was a toddler who also couldn’t stop thinking: a tap on the nose and the phrase, “brain, stop”. but the thing is, my brain isn’t ‘thinking’. it’s actually stressing out. i’m not a mad scientist churning out big ideas that could transform humanity as we know it. i’m regurgitating Youtube video tidbits about working smarter, winning the day in five minutes, eating the frog, or eating the elephant, clinging desperately to the belief that a fully optimized daily schedule is the gateway to greatness — or better yet, happiness.
the opposite of a productive day is an unproductive one. and if a productive day is a happy day, then you can guess what an unproductive day feels like to me. when i get forcibly detached from my ideal routine, whether it’s because of a week-long work trip, a string of late night hang-outs with friends, an unexpected loss or heartbreak, or a series of errands that took longer than expected, i get anxious and upset. instead of feeling fulfilled by what i’m doing in the moment, i end up thinking about everything i could have done, if i just ‘optimized better’, or if this or that had not happened. the problem is that many of those quote-unquote unproductive days or weeks contain troves of beautiful, meaningful, joyful moments.
an unproductive day could be one where i fill up two blank pages with words and ideas, even if it eats up two hours. it could be one where i lost track of time surfing the reddit archives of a show i really enjoyed. it could be that one day i made a twitter edit of Cha Eunwoo, which took the entire day! but i was so proud of it! on work-trips, i could spend the nighttimes having heart-to-heart conversations with my workmates. i can accompany my mother to the grocery store even if i don’t need anything. i can say yes to a spontaneous hangout with a friend i haven’t seen in a while. i can do all of this on days that are conventionally unproductive.
on unproductive seasons, like the time i went through a breakup and couldn’t get up for weeks, or when i organized an event and got so busy that i didn’t touch my journal for a month, it’s more difficult to cope with the loss of my routines. but even the worst seasons helped me learn and grow in ways that more stable, productive seasons might not have.
unproductive days and seasons can unleash my creativity, help me rediscover old hobbies and interests, teach me more about myself, and allow me to spend more of my limited time on earth happy, with people i love and things i love to do. learning to love the unproductive periods of my life begins with seeing it for what it really is: just another opportunity to be happy and live a good life.
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so i dedicate the year 2025 to knocking productivity off of its pedestal, and instead placing more value on appreciating and finding joy in what each day and season of life has to offer. my goals and to-do lists and self-imposed deadlines serve valuable functions of their own, but i want to be able to view them in a healthier way, where i don’t conflate my achievement of these to how happy i am allowed to be. if i only accomplish a few things for the day, it’s okay. and if a few things can wait, then they can definitely give way for people and activities that make me happy. instead of always trying to be on track — and having a host of habit and goal trackers for that very reason — i can better appreciate being ‘off track’, especially since life’s seasons will send us reeling in all sorts of directions, anyway.
at the start of 2024, i painstakingly created quarterly goals for 11 different aspects of my life, complete with metrics and milestones. by the middle of the year, after so many life-altering things happened, i stopped looking at it entirely because i was sure i wouldn’t achieve the goals i set. but after taking a peek at the end of the year, i actually achieved or came close to achieving a good amount of them, despite all the craziness the year brought and despite not actively thinking of achieving the goals. in the end, i had a good year and did what i wanted to do. not because i had a list of things to accomplish, but because i powered through a lot of the struggles and did the things i loved to do. it’s an immense reminder of the power of joy. when joy, and everything it encompasses, is at the center of our lives, the best parts of ourselves leap out of us, shining outwards and touching the lives of others. and when we learn to find joy in every small moment, in every different kind of day and season — what else can i say? we’re in for a very, very fun ride.
