I have always been a productivity junkie.
Whatever new hack, tip, or technique came on the scene that promised I could accomplish more in the same amount of time, I was here for it!
After all, doesn’t the job description for a mom say you must be able to juggle about 50 things at the same time?
I thought that was working great for me until a couple of months ago.
One Saturday night a couple of hours before bedtime, the weirdest thing happened.
I couldn’t speak correctly. Every 20 words or so, I was saying the wrong word. The word I meant to say in my brain was not coming out my mouth.
Talk about terrifying.
And the more freaked out I became, the worse it got.
I decided to go to sleep early because it wouldn’t stop.
The next morning, I woke up feeling and speaking normally, but still understandably scared.
Monday, I went to see my primary care doctor. My vitals looked good, and after a million questions, he chalked the whole thing up to anxiety.
He told me that I had too much on my mind. He said that constantly thinking about all the things I needed to do and spending little to no time on hobbies was keeping my mind in an anxious state, which was trickling down to affect me physically.
I left that appointment finally making the time to consider how hard I was constantly pushing myself mentally, and how that tendency, which I always considered to be a good thing, was actually hurting me.
(Side note: He ended up being wrong. My blood work showed that my thyroid levels were way out of whack, which was causing brain fog. My endocrinologist changed my medication, and it hasn’t happened since.)
Despite the fact that mental overload didn’t cause my speech problem, it was still a wakeup call.
Perhaps my desire to be productive—no my habit of measuring the success of my day by how productive I had been—was really an obstacle getting in the way of the life I was supposed to live.
The definition of productivity is to get more output from a set input, in this case to get more done in a set number of hours.
Is that really what I want my life to be about? For my day to be structured around? Getting more checked off a list?
I can just imagine getting to the end of my life and saying, “I didn’t have many close relationships, and I didn’t really invest into many people, but I sure crushed my to-do lists.”
Seems like a poor way to live. So, I am officially declaring war on my pursuit of productivity, and here’s why you should too.
3 Reasons You Should Declare War on Productivity
1. Productivity comes at the expense of our relationships.
You would be rich if I gave you a nickel for every time my daughter asked me to play with her and I said no in order to tackle another thing on my list.
Yeah, laundry still has to be washed and dinner still needs to be cooked, but are we ever willing to scrap our agendas to pretend to ride horses through our living rooms or listen to our hubby explain the latest thing he saw online?
So many times, I choose my agenda or I only devote part of my attention to the person while continuing to do something else.
And who suffers most? The people I love.
2. Productivity comes at the expense of our health.
My experience is evidence of this. Our brains are powerful, but they aren’t meant to be pushed 24/7. And the mental stress of always feeling behind will have physical consequences.
I finally understand why God commanded that we rest and Sabbath.
I have always treated both like a suggestion, or equated Sabbath with going to church.
But I missed the mark by a mile.
God knew we needed rest for our bodies, souls, and spirits, so he made it a commandment. Commandments are not optional.
3. Productivity comes at the expense of our faith.
If I am constantly in motion, whether my body or my mind, how do I expect to hear from God?
He isn’t able to steer me in a different direction or impress upon me to do something for someone else because I am too busy with my own thoughts and plans.
The wind can steer a sailboat but not a motorboat. And, I was motoring through every day, just bearing down harder on a windy day.
I still think it is important to spend our time wisely and purposefully. After all, our days are short, and we want them to count.
But I no longer think life is a race to see how much we can get done, but a mission to get the right things done.
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