We Need to Reclaim ‘Productivity’

Let’s talk about productivity. We all know that there’s a cottage industry on the internet around maximizing productivity. Lists of morning routines, podcast interviews with CEOs, and books providing templates for success. A question that comes up more rarely is: What is all this productivity in service of? Why do we want to be the most productive?

The obvious answer is related to money and self-worth. Productivity goes up with income and self-esteem. But many have noticed something anxious at the root of this kind of product-oriented thought. The need to always produce at a high level can become limiting prison. In striving to optimize everything, the productivity-mindset starts to see everything in terms of potential for gain. All hardship or difficulty is reframed as opportunity for personal growth. Life becomes a rat race of obsessive progress.

Our product-oriented vision filters out anything that doesn’t fit in our journey of accomplishment and accumulation. Structuring our lives solely around production objectifies everything we encounter. We learn to see through the narrow lens of usefulness.

What I want to do here is envision another kind of productivity, one that is not beholden to a limiting world of self-improvement and personal progress. This is an attempt to redeem productivity from the systems of instrumentalization and…