Like many students, I have trouble getting my homework done on time without staying up late. So two years ago, I read the self-help book Limitless and started exploring productivity techniques in an attempt to make my life better. At first, these strategies helped me stay on top of my work. Eventually, though, being productive became what made my life worse.
With a newly-diagnosed autoimmune condition that required me to skip a lot of school, I started learning everything that I could about becoming more productive so I could get my schoolwork done faster. This changed the way I looked at the world.
I employed new techniques like spaced repetition to study, read self-help books, and tried countless productivity apps to see what worked for me. I also started keeping a to-do list to remember tasks. This helped me feel more organized and on top of my work, especially when I missed school. The feeling of accomplishment I got when I checked off a task on my to-do list encouraged me to get everything finished.
I tried almost every productivity system I could get my hands on: Habitica, Todoist, TickTick, Skedpal, Minimalist. But even with these new productivity systems, I didn’t stop feeling swamped with work.
Eventually, the need to be efficient transformed from helping me get work done to being a source of unhappiness in my life. Work began to creep into little moments of the day—when I was waiting for pickup, before class started, after I got my classwork done, even though I needed a mental break to unwind. I found myself feeling guilty during free time, and itching to find more work to do in order to be productive. The need to be efficient and optimize downtime produced a perfectionistic mindset that stopped me from enjoying free time as long as I had tasks to do.
My desire to constantly be productive to a harmful degree isn’t rare. This mindset is called toxic productivity; Harvard Health defines it as “an obsessive preoccupation with being productive at all costs—and never feeling like what you’ve done is ‘enough.’
The pressure to be perfect and finish everything can be harmful. A 2022 study of college students in Spain shows there is a strong relationship between having a perfectionistic mindset and lower mental well-being.
A few months later, I was feeling exhausted from using these apps and constantly doing tasks. One time, I was feeling especially discouraged and didn’t get them done, but nothing bad happened. This prompted me to notice that many things I added onto the to-do list weren’t necessary or important to me. I discovered that trying to be productive wasn’t truly helping me or making me happier.
As my autoimmune disorder became worse and schoolwork got harder, I was forced to ask for help to catch up on the material I missed. It felt awkward to ask for help and take breaks since I felt that I could handle everything without it.
However, I realized that when I asked for help, I became less stressed and overwhelmed. Optimizing what I did slowly became less of a priority as I started to accept that not doing everything by myself was okay.
This helped me find peace with stopping activities or commitments I didn’t enjoy, since my focus shifted from finding things to do in my free time so I could be productive to making sure I enjoyed what I was doing. To my surprise, this helped with my art.
When I started drawing, I practiced with gesture drawings and studies aimed to improve my art, a self-imposed commitment that I made to optimize the progression of my skills, even though I wasn’t interested in these drills. When I stepped out of the range of art studies and drew characters and animations, I had more fun. I drew for longer and more consistently, which, in turn, improved my art.
While I still use to-do lists and apps to help me manage my work, I have learned to ask for help when I feel overwhelmed. Although not everything is checked off my to-do list anymore, stepping away from optimizing my life was what I needed to be happier.
