The Downside of Productivity:

Don’t be over productive. Who are trying to beat? Other people? Nah. If you’re trying to do extra things to get other people’s approval, you’re never going to be happy. I struggled with this a lot during the early stages of the pandemic. I kept thinking about how much time I had on my hands to do all these things. I could read, work out, eat healthy, learn a language, learn how to play music, start drawing, etc. Then I asked myself, for whom? Most of it wasn’t for me.

I slowly realized this was how I was raised. I was raised to always be busy. Had a convo with my mom about this because this is how she brought us up. Growing up, we used to be at a different activity every day of the week. Soccer, swimming, basketball, tennis, music, after school clubs, etc. That was mostly because of the chase to boost our resumes and make us into more ‘all-round’ people. But there’s also a downside to it that I didn’t stop to think about till this year.

Why do I always need to feel busy? Why do I always feel like I need to be doing something productive in order to advance? It’s a combination of how I was raised but also being a high functioning adult in high growth and high knowledge industries. It feels constantly like I need to keep up with what’s going on in the world but also in my industry and at my job. Then do all of that while maintaining relationships with your friends, keeping healthy, eating right, and also give yourself enough rest time. It can be exhausting.

Why the need to feel productive? I’m not sure. Was talking to someone today about it. I think a lot of it is our culture in North America. Doing more to make more money. Being in competition with the person next to you. Comparing yourself to people who are the same age as you.

Think about it. How many times have you read a Forbes article talking about how great some 20 year old in the middle of America produced a groundbreaking invention? Look at some of the best athletes these days. Mbappe, Haaland, Osaka, Doncic. Even Lamar Jackson and Mahomes are younger than me now. Don’t get me wrong, athletics is a completely different discipline but when you’re comparing yourself to people at the same age as you are, or even younger, it gets depressing.

This is what I like to call the comparison trap. This ultimately has a lot to do with why we feel the need to be productive. We constantly compare ourselves to people around us. That doesn’t necessarily mean directly around us but also the people we see on TV, in the media or on social. We feel like we need to compete with who they are. But this is wrong. You’re never going to be that other person. You’re never going to have the same circumstances or skill set that they have.

What you do have is the skillset you have. The perspective you have and the experiences you’ve lived through are uniquely yours. No one else has them. No one else has your DNA. You can build off of them to create the life you want, or you can choose to just chill out. There are definitely situations when both are valid, but ultimately it comes down to what you want out of life.

Do you want to be someone who attains a level of success that few people reach? If you do, then you have to do what few people do. You have to work in your off time. Like Naval says, what looks like work to other people but is fun to you.

For example, reading. I rediscovered my passion for reading a few years ago and I’m so glad I did. Don’t get me wrong, that first year there were definitely times where I didn’t want to read and would have rather watched an extra episode of that show on Netflix. But I showed myself that I could still watch Netflix and read. It was just doing little by little every day. Could I use my time even more efficiently than I do right now? Absolutely but I don’t have to. Once I’m in a relationship and have kids, you’re going to have to. You have to decide what you want to prioritize and what you’re willing to give up.

At the end of the day, it’s about what makes you happy. I know that the time I’m using now to read, learn and work on myself will prove out down the road. It’s a bet for my future self. Delayed gratification is so important. Yes, a Krispy Kreme donut or McDonald’s mcflurry every so often is great and I’ll never give that up. But don’t let bad decisions compound.

For me now, it’s about maximizing my body and use of time efficiently, while also having fun along the way. Think about this, I still played close to 50 rounds of golf last summer. Multiply that by on average 4-5 hours per round and that’s 250 hours I could’ve been doing something more productive. But pack that. Why would I give up golf? I know in different situations in my life when I’m not living at home, I’ll be using that time in different ways. But while I have access to that luxury, you might as well take advantage of it.

Life is constantly shifting priorities. Some days certain things are more important than others. Today, my goal is to work on myself as much as possible. But a decade from now, it’s likely my priorities shift to my family and kids. Eventually though, your kids will leave and you are with much more time on your hands. So by that time I’ll be able to hopefully play 50 rounds of golf again. But in the meantime, this situation probably won’t happen again.

You also just have to be adaptable to circumstances. I only learned how to invest in the market because we had such a severe correction in March and I had a bunch of time on my hands staying at home. I wasn’t out seeing people; I was spending time with the family. After a certain amount of time, you get tired of the family so eventually you start to focus on other things. Investing was one of those things. Do I learn it the same way if I didn’t have the pandemic? Unlikely. It probably would’ve happened later down the road, but I got such a head start on it.

It’s interesting though to consider different paths you could’ve taken. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. What if I got into Fam med residency straight out of med school? Would I be happier? I don’t know. I’d like to say not, but that’s hard to know. My path to self-discovery and what I’ve learned about the world and myself only happened because I had all this time in evenings and weekends. Could I have learned all these things in medicine? Probably not until I graduated residency because so much of your time is spent in hospital seeing patients.

The value of time. Man people underestimate it so badly. We have one life. Our time is finite. No matter what, we’re all gonna die someday. Yet we choose to waste our lives on things that don’t matter like social media or watching TV or working a job we hate. Sometimes we’re put in circumstances we don’t have control over, but we also should do everything in our power to change our circumstances. A lot of that comes on betting on yourself, which most people are scared to do.

Betting on yourself is terrifying because there’s so much more risk. You don’t know what’s going to happen and day-to-day, there is a lot of uncertainty. However, if you look at history and the most successful people, all of them have that in common. They all bet on themselves. They zigged when everyone zagged. They worked on problems, sometimes for decades, when other people may not have understood what they were doing.

Don’t get me wrong, for every 1 of them there are 10 other people who failed who you don’t hear about. But let’s examine that for a second. Why did they fail? I venture to say it was because they gave up or stopped trying to pursue their dream. If you get someone who wants something bad enough, they’ll do everything they can to make sure they get there. Think and Grow Rich taught me that. No matter what the outside world says, if you believe in something bad enough for long periods of time that your subconscious mind understands it, you’ll do everything you can to be successful.

But it has to be an obsession. Along the way you’ll face so many hurdles. So many people telling you you’re making a mistake or questioning your decisions. Your belief in yourself has to be so great that no one can shake that, even your conscious mind. You have to believe it deep within your mind.

As long as you’re doing things you enjoy to accomplish that end goal while respecting being patient, you’ll get there eventually. Don’t speed up time; enjoy it for the luxury it is.