My Relationship With Constant Productivity
Should I spend time nurturing relationships or should I focus all my efforts on being more productive? — My Brain every day
As the , if I decided to stay still on the walkway of life, I would just start falling behind. If I wasn’t pushing myself to hustle 24x7, then I was doing everything wrong.
My brain convinced me that if I am not hunkered down with my laptop in front of me, I am not productive. If not making lists and notes and not following my routine, then I am destined to fail.
Every piece of content online says if I am productive then I’ll be happy. If this is the key to happiness, why do I hear a conflicting message from others who seem happier?
, Americans are reporting spending more and more time alone. The loneliness epidemic we all hear about is real. Yet, no productivity expert talks about how to fit relationships into our uber-productive quest for contentment.
Robert Waldinger, a professor at Harvard Medical School, told The Harvard Gazette in 2017, “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”
Multiple reasons can affect social connectedness:
- Lack of Time
- Conflicts
- Thinking collectively
- Lack of immediate result
It’s much easier to download an app that can help track the number of minutes at your desk. What gets harder is — taking a break from everything, picking up the phone, and calling a friend.
The time and effort it takes to nurture and grow our relationships with our friends, families, and partners. That’s the real fu&*^ng hustle.
Our relationships with our partners, friends, family, and colleagues all provide us with a sort of internal life energy that will never fail to keep us going. That’s what makes this hustle so worth it.
There’s an , having started in 1938, saying:
“The people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with the community.”
If you want to be happier and have stronger, positive relationships, Waldinger recommended “replacing screen time with people time, or reaching out to that family member who you haven’t spoken to in years.”
Take time out of your daily grind and put some of that energy into connecting with the world. Our relationships allow us to be ourselves; they enable us to be truly happy.
