The paradox of modern productivity

Learning to redefine success in a world that glorifies overwork (& a free Notion worksheet!)

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Since when did productivity start to feel so much like anxiety?

When I think about my “productive” days, they’re often caffeine-fueled marathons, with shakiness and anxiety surging through my veins—feelings I once mistook for energy. My mind races, I’m restless, and I multitask at lightning speed, convinced that if I stop, everything will come crashing down.

In 2024, I started to question whether my definition of productivity was doing me any good. I remembered a tweet I saw years ago that read: “Stop pretending that your busyness is actually productivity.” At the time, it hit a nerve. I felt anger, then shame, though I didn’t know why. Looking back, I realize it was the first time I saw my busy, chaotic pace for what it was: unsustainable and inefficient. I used to pride myself on juggling a million tasks at once, precariously balancing it all like a clown unicycling through life. But for what?

This year, I’ve started to slow down and ask myself a new question: What does it really mean to be productive? Thought leaders like Ali Abdaal in Feel Good Productivity and Cal Newport with his idea of Slow Productivity have started challenging the traditional narrative, redefining productivity as something that feels good and sustainable. I haven’t yet read Newport’s book (perhaps I should), but the phrase slow productivity lingers in my mind.

If we look at the timeline of work culture and productivity over the last decade, the concept of slow productivity has emerged as a direct response to the relentless hustle culture mindset. I’m aging myself here, but as a (late) millennial, I grew up immersed in this hustle mentality—one shaped by boomers and early millennials who equated success with overwork and busyness.

For years, I absorbed this belief without question: the more you do, the more productive you are. But lately, I’ve found myself asking a different question: What if productivity isn’t about how much you get done, but about how intentional your work is—how closely it aligns with your goals and ambitions?

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What is slow productivity

Slow productivity is the practice of achieving meaningful progress toward your goals while prioritizing balance, mindfulness, and intentional living. It’s about focusing on quality over quantity, aligning your work with your values, and creating space for rest, reflection, and presence. Instead of rushing to do more, slow productivity encourages doing less—but doing it better—while embracing the flow of life and avoiding burnout.

To those who grew up with hustle culture like I did, this definition might sound like an oxymoron. Isn’t productivity supposed to be fast, efficient, and intense? The line between hard work and burnout has always been razor-thin for me—a line I’ve walked carefully, occasionally crossing just to see how far I could push myself. The idea that slowing down could make me more productive seemed paradoxical, even counterintuitive.

But maybe that’s the point: slow productivity isn’t about doing less for the sake of it. It’s about doing what truly matters, with intention and focus, while leaving room to actually enjoy the life you’re working so hard to build.

I won’t discredit how far my anxious productivity has taken me over the years. I worked a full-time marketing job while also building multiple businesses on the side. I ran an e-commerce store, created content for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and also have experimented with other random business ideas over the years.

There came a point where I realized that in order for me to maintain all of these businesses, I had to give up other aspects of my life. I chose to spend less time with friends and family, devoting my evenings and weekends entirely to my passion projects. It felt like it was working at the time—I was moving up in the corporate world while my digital community grew steadily. But things started to fall apart internally.

Beyond work, my relationships suffered. I isolated myself, pushing people away to prioritize my endless to-do lists. My body was also taking a hit. I thought I had perfected the ultimate sleep schedule—6 to 6.5 hours a night—waking at 6 a.m., journaling, making coffee, and diving straight into work. But being in a constant state of busyness manifested in both physical and emotional symptoms. Exhaustion, anxiety, and burnout became my normal, and work turned into a chase for validation and fulfillment because it was all I had left to prioritize.

Luckily, I had self-help books to fall back on. Beyond my love of business books, I gravitated toward anything that promised to help me become stronger, more resilient, and capable of working harder. At the time, I thought the key to fixing my problems was simply to improve myself emotionally and mentally so I could sustain my pace. What I didn’t realize was how deeply this mindset was contributing to the problem.

This intense focus on my career and personal growth created cognitive dissonance in my life. I was learning so much about both, yet I couldn’t bridge the gap between the two. Over time, another rift emerged—one between the person I thought I wanted to be and the person I was at my core. As I pushed myself further, I also lost touch with my inner child, the part of me that once knew how to rest, play, and just be.

The Modern Productivity Trap

Somewhere along the way, we confused busyness with progress. We convinced ourselves that the more we do, the more productive we are—but that’s the biggest lie hustle culture ever sold us. It’s what I call the “modern productivity trap.”

I know I've spent entire days feeling "busy" – jumping between emails, Slack messages, and minor tasks – only to realize at the end of the day that I accomplished nothing substantive. This constant motion creates an illusion of productivity while actually preventing meaningful work from happening.

Social media has only amplified this problem. We're constantly bombarded with content that glorifies the hustle, celebrates 4AM wake-up calls, and frames exhaustion as a badge of honor. The message is clear: if you're not busy every minute, you're falling behind. This mindset is particularly dangerous because it's masked as aspirational – who doesn't want to be "productive"?

But the truth is, endless activity ≠ real productivity. In fact, it often does the opposite. When we prioritize the appearance of productivity—constant motion, instant replies, never-ending to-do lists—we sacrifice the deep, intentional work that actually moves the needle.

Even worse, this cycle keeps us perpetually dissatisfied. No matter how much we accomplish, there’s always more to do, another milestone to chase, another metric to improve. We tell ourselves that if we just work harder, we’ll finally feel successful, finally feel caught up. But we never do—because the finish line keeps moving.

Redefining Productivity: What Actually Matters?

When we step back from the frantic pace of modern productivity, we can finally ask ourselves what truly matters. In my journey away from anxiety-driven productivity, I've discovered that redefining productivity isn't about abandoning ambition—it's about aligning our work with what actually creates meaningful results and personal fulfillment.

Like I mentioned earlier, the fundamental shift has to begin with our metrics. For years, I measured my productivity by how many tasks I could check off or how busy my calendar looked. But I've come to realize that quantity is a poor substitute for quality. The most impactful work often doesn't fit neatly into a to-do list format—it requires deep thinking, creativity, and focused attention.

In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport makes a compelling distinction between "deep work" (cognitively demanding tasks that create new value) and "shallow work" (logistical-style tasks that don't require much concentration). The paradox is that while shallow work often feels productive—the constant emails, quick tasks, and administrative duties—it's actually the deep work that advances our most important goals.

One of my favorite concepts that I’ve learned in the last few years is the 80/20 rule. The rule states that 20% of your work produces 80% of the results. When we’re fill our time with shallow work, we’re actually working on the 80% of the work that products 20% of the results. The math just doesn’t add up—why are we spending our precious hours focused on the wrong things?

This brings me to another misconception: the myth of multitasking. Despite priding myself on my ability to "do it all at once," research consistently shows that humans are simply not built for splitting our focus. When we think we're multitasking, we're actually rapidly switching contexts—each switch carrying a cognitive cost that depletes our mental energy and reduces overall effectiveness.

Perhaps the most radical shift in my thinking has been redefining what success looks like at the end of a workday. My old normal—collapsing into bed, utterly depleted—now seems like a failure rather than an achievement. Instead, what if we measured success by how fulfilled and energized we feel? What if productivity meant ending the day with enough mental and emotional bandwidth to enjoy our lives outside of work?

Redefining success in this way prioritizes intention over motion, creativity over mechanistic output, and alignment with our deepest values over superficial metrics. It allows us to ask better questions: Did my work today matter? Did it move me toward my most important goals? Did it engage my unique strengths and talents?

The answers to these questions reveal the true nature of productivity—not as a measure of busyness, nor to “do less” for the sake of it, but to make space for the work that actually moves the needle. So if the answer isn’t doing more or even doing less, but instead doing the right things with intention, how do we actually apply this in our lives?

Practical strategies to implement slow productivity

Implementing slow productivity requires intentional changes to our work habits and mindset. Here are some practical strategies that have helped me shift from anxious productivity to a more meaningful approach to work:

• Pick your “daily 3” - Instead of overwhelming yourself with your endless to-do list, just focus on three key tasks each day. If you can, batch your work by day as well. If my goal is to film and edit 3 videos this week, I’ll use Monday to ideate all 3 videos, Tuesday to film 2 videos, Wednesday to film the other video and edit one video, Thursday and Friday to edit the other 2 videos. This helps to prioritize deep work while eliminating the stress of unfinished lists.

• Stop measuring work in hours - Productivity = outcome not hours spent. Experiment with energy-based planning instead of rigid time blocks. Schedule your deep work blocks during the blocks in your day you feel the most energized.

• Design “buffers” in your schedule - This year we’re saying no to back-to-back meetings or tasks—allow yourself breathing room between work and meeting blocks.

• Adopt a “no rush” mindset” - I talked about this strategy in my recent post *When your "normal" is everyone else's "overwhelmed”.* To help my brain understand that I don’t need to rush through everything, I consciously started slowing down everything I did. Walking, cooking, working. Slowing down physically was essentially signalling to my brain to slow down as well.

• Make rest & play a part of your work day - Creativity and problem thrives best in unstructured time. Our brain requires the time off to be able to process information, plan, and allow for creativity. Giving ourselves time to do nothing sometimes ends up being the most productive thing we can do for ourselves. Read this post for ideas on what to do during your “nothing” blocks.

Overcoming productivity guilt

Lucy from Hype Yourself recently replied to a note I made on having more creative days.

Here was my response:

One of the most challenging aspects of shifting to a slower, more intentional approach to productivity is overcoming the deeply ingrained guilt that comes with it. This guilt isn't just personal—it's cultural. We've been conditioned to equate our worth with our output, making every moment of rest feel like a moral failing.

When I first started deliberately slowing down, I was constantly battling thoughts like: "I should be doing more" or "Everyone else is hustling while I'm taking it easy." This internal dialogue wasn't just distracting—it actively undermined my attempts to work more intentionally.

The reality is that productivity guilt serves no one. It doesn't make us more effective, creative, or fulfilled. Instead, it creates a cycle of anxiety that prevents us from fully engaging with our work or enjoying our rest.

Here are some insights I've gained about overcoming this guilt:

• Why we struggle to embrace slow productivity:

  • Feeling lazy when not busy. This sensation is sooo common because we've internalized the idea that constant activity equals virtue. When we stop, that uncomfortable feeling isn't laziness—it's withdrawal from busyness addiction.

  • Fear of "falling behind." In a culture that frames career and life as a race, taking a deliberate pace feels risky. We worry that others will overtake us if we pause even momentarily.

  • Unlearning the hustle culture mindset. After years of consuming content that glorifies overwork, our brains need time to adjust to a new paradigm of success—one that values sustainability over sacrifice.

• How to reframe productivity in a healthier way

  • Ask: Did today feel meaningful? instead of Did I get enough done? This simple shift in questioning helps reorient your definition of a successful day.

  • Replace guilt with trust in the long game. Recognize that sustainable progress over time outperforms short bursts of exhausting productivity.

  • Learn to celebrate presence and progress, not just completion. Find satisfaction in the quality of your engagement with tasks, not just in checking them off.

The Paradox (Hopefully) Resolved

After exploring the modern productivity trap and its alternatives, I've come to understand that true productivity exists in a beautiful paradox: sometimes the most productive thing we can do is slow down.

The journey from anxious productivity to intentional work isn't about abandoning ambition—it's about aligning our actions with what truly matters. It's about recognizing that our worth isn't measured by our output, but by the meaning and intention we bring to our work and lives.

What I've discovered is that productivity at its best isn't about doing more things—it's about doing the right things, at the right pace, for the right reasons. It's about creating space for deep work while honoring our need for rest and reflection. It's about measuring success not by exhaustion, but by fulfillment.

Perhaps most importantly, I've learned that sustainable productivity isn't a destination but a practice—one that requires constant recalibration as our circumstances and priorities evolve. Some days will demand intense focus and output, while others will call for rest and regeneration. The wisdom lies in knowing the difference and responding accordingly.

As we navigate a world that often equates busyness with value, let's remember that the most meaningful work emerges not from frantic activity but from thoughtful engagement. Let's embrace the paradox that sometimes, to achieve more, we must do less—but with greater intention and presence.

I wanted to leave you with a question to ponder post-read: What if productivity was about alignment, not output? How would your work—and your life—change?

Perhaps in answering these questions, we (yes, both of us!) can transform not just how we work, but how we live—creating lives that feel not just productive, but profoundly worthwhile.

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