The Need To Become More Productive
Tags: Productivity, Time, Students, Time Management, Procrastination

Introduction

Due to COVID, I think we have all had so much time to realise how much we waste and how it is flying by us with no plans of slowing down. I certainly have. Since the start of COVID my productivity has been up and down like a rollercoaster, and it is tiring and stressful having a ride like that daily. What is the reason for these peaks and troughs in my productivity?

Productivity

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (2020), productivity is “the rate at which a company or country makes goods, usually judged in connection with the number of people and the amount of materials necessary to produce the goods”.

How does this relate to an individual, and why does it have such a huge impact on their lives?

Becoming More Productive

Anybody given a choice would love to become more productive, it allows us to get more done, to have more time; with family, friends, personal time, exercise, etc. However, when an individual becomes interested in becoming more productive, they will often find a negative correlation between the effort they are putting in to become productive and the amount of work that they are getting done.

Positive Impacts

You can get more done

You feel better about yourself

You have new routines that create structure in your life

Negative Impacts

Can be hard to sustain

Burnout

How do you manage events you haven’t accounted for?

Personal Experience

My personal experience with productivity has been a difficult, confusing and slightly bipolar situation. There have been days where I have been able to get loads done and days where I haven’t even been able to motivate myself to get out of bed and do the work that I need to. I spend wasted hours browsing articles, Reddit, blogs and forums looking for ways to become more productive looking for solutions to a problem that I didn’t have. Before I started looking at how to be more productive, I was actually more productive.

I have become obsessed with managing my time that I am actually losing more time. Therefore becoming less productive.

The above statement is quite a scary one, and it shows that as humans, we can often become obsessed with things that we think are more important than another. In my own personal example, I have shown that I become more interested in becoming more productive than doing my work and this leads me to stop doing any studying or work and just lead to me become even more frustrated due to anger that I couldn’t get anything done.

The solution to my problems has been staring me in the face the whole time, and it is to simply just stop. Just to take a minute, stop trying to find out how to be more productive, breathe, focus on the things that are important. Think about what I need to do and just do it, instead of rigorously planning my days, to the point where every 5 minutes of my day was written down on a calendar.

How are things now?

Things are getting better, I recently took a new hobby, cycling. This is due to my having to commute to University. Cycling has taught me that the best way to get better at it is to cycle. Not research how to cycle better but to just get out on my bike and pedal. This way, my muscle builds, my endurance, my average speed, further distances and overall, I start to feel less tired during my rides.

This directly has an impact on my work and studying because by actually starting and doing the activities I am already in a better situation than what I was before I started.

Since I have started doing instead of researching what and how to do it better. I have ironically become much better, faster and more productive at doing my work. This has been my own personal struggles with a self-obsession of making myself better and trying to increase productivity.

What should you take away from this?

Yes, by all means, become a better you, become more productive, do more with your time. However don’t go down the never-ending dark hole that leads you to try to fix a small issue that you keep turning into bigger issues over time until it fully consumes all of your time, work, studying and personal time.

If you want to get more done, then spend more time doing it than reading how to do it faster and better. You will thank yourself for the more actual doing you do.

References

Cambridge Dictionary, 2020, Definition of Productivity, Online Resource, Link