Daylight Savings Time and Productivity Detox
Redefining “Productivity” to Actually Get S**t Done
Like literal clockwork, Daylight Savings Time ended recently, bringing the predictable wave of analyses over the waste it creates, the uptick in accidents and heart attacks, and strong opinions for keeping and removing it shouted to the void of the internet.
Usually, I don’t mind this time change as much. It feels darker in the evenings but a little lighter in the mornings, and for one day, you get an extra hour.
This year, the extra hour challenged a mindset shift I’ve been attempting. I saw the day coming on the calendar and felt an instinctual, compulsive slice of toxic hope. With an extra hour in the day, I knew I would do so much more with the day. Like many years past, I believed I would get enough sleep, finish lingering items on my to-do list, and be oh-so-ready for the coming week (probably with time to make a fancier dinner than usual).
But I recently read the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown (which I cannot recommend highly enough) and felt the challenge to the lessons I was trying to learn from it. “Essentialism” details the philosophy of narrowing your focus to only what matters to you and putting all energy towards that - a great exercise in all aspects of life. This directly opposes some of my very ingrained habits; mainly saying “yes” to every opportunity and locking myself into a path of inevitable burnout/disappointment.
So for me, the end of Daylight Savings Time was a swinging carrot, tempting me to fall off the wagon and try to do a little more of everything. And it was sure to end the same way it has ended every other year - in disappointment.
(Re)defining Productivity
Productivity is a loaded term. It’s something we are rewarded for, asked to optimize at work, and generally conveys reverence when someone is labeled “productive.” We can proudly state, “I had a productive day,” and show off the number of items checked off our to-do lists. We can pat ourselves on the back if we’ve “done a lot” that day, falling into bed exhausted from our productivity.
When we see productivity as the desired result, we feel compelled (as I did with my extra hour) to fill every square inch of our calendar then feel guilty for not doing it all. We see days as “wasted” if we cannot check off any items on our list. As a result, we become highly susceptible to the notion that we must not be happy because we aren’t doing enough. Maybe we’re just lazy? If only we could be more like the idolized productivity gurus whose articles flood our timelines and prop up our anxiety of feeling like we’re “not enough.” Then maybe we’d be happy and worthy.
The core problem is treating productivity as a goal in itself rather than using productivity as a means to a separate end. When we engage in busy work to feel like we’ve done something but spend little energy checking if those tasks are moving the needle, we only fuel our burnout.
This dissonance has key identifiable features. It appears when we look back at a “busy” month that seems to have nothing to show for it. We can become so buried in our work that when we finally come up for air, we feel like we were on a treadmill - exhausted from moving, but in the same place we started.
This loss of energy has a compounding effect. Now that time has passed, we feel farther from our original goals, but pervasive exhaustion colors our entire outlook. How can we get back to what we wanted when we’ve just burned our tanks to empty?
The Difficult Path to Saving Ourselves
How do we change this mindset? How do we make productivity work for us instead of the other way around?
To start, we have to know what we truly want. We have to stick to our values and our purpose.
Once we identify what is essential, we need to devise our actions to make that happen. How will we know when we are making progress? What does “success” look and feel like? Identifying these ahead of time saves us from languishing later, wondering if anything has changed or if we are even moving in the right direction when the initial excitement starts to wear off.
Then we engage in the most challenging task of all: sticking to our plan. This means making the uncomfortable trade-off of saying ‘no’ to some opportunities, even when they feel exciting or easy enough to “just add on top” of our current efforts. We have to ruthlessly determine whether a new opportunity is in line with our goals (personal, work, and otherwise), and continually establish and maintain boundaries on our time. We have to know the goal is important enough to be our primary focus, even when progress feels slow.
We can not succumb to the temptation of seeing an extra hour as a chance to say “yes” just to avoid having to say no and risk disappointing others. We have to know our essential goal important enough to deliver an “Elegant No” (credit: Eimear Zone).
When the limited hours in our day are purpose-oriented, with distractions being politely turned-down, life begins to feel possible again. Our empty tanks fill with growing satisfaction, allowing us to move more sustainably and give more of ourselves to others when we want to, rather than feeling resentment because we “have” to.
To pursue productivity as a goal is to pursue burnout; to pursue purpose is to pursue satisfaction and sustainability.