The "Productivity" Fad
Everyone sought to be more "productive" but I have a slightly different take on the topic after being in that community for a while.
Productivity is certainly not bad, but for some people including me, it comes and goes like a fad. My story goes like this:
Seeing some productivity videos and people achieving greatness young.
Start journaling, doing said productivity hacks, produce a rather impressive amount of work.
After less than a week, it starts fading and momentum drops
Doing absolutely the bare minimum, indulging into stuff (Me rn)
From this constant loop I'm stuck in, I have some observations.
Since most of the productivity is a result of an external motivation, it have to be constantly supplied to keep the state of mind. That refers to productivity videos, people who is doing better than me, but not psychology and other vent content that are mediums that allow expression of emotions.
Second of my observation is the "need" to do it. That is often the case when I actually produce a lot, which is when I have the demand to do so. That is reflected in my time transitioning to streaming in English every Wednesday, where I know there are audience waiting. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the video release schedule since early 2024. That is presumably caused by inability for people to tell me to make a video along the torturous process as my own quality expectation increases.
Thirdly, the existence of distraction is the biggest cause to the drop in momentum and switching into indulgence. Since consumption of media, content, and games often provide a more favorable option. This results in the alternative being prioritized over the actual work being done, which there are some ways to reduce its influence such as increasing friction to them, but it wouldn't provided the motivation to actually do tasks to a quality level nor the extras that might sprawl from it.
This fad of "productivity" I experience should call for a short self-assessment of internal motivation and also partly self-control. The desire to create drawings or videos must be greater than the dopamine from consumption. In my own case, the performance of my own media output partly determines it, where the past few "flops" did made me very discouraged to pour in more effort.
In conclusion, "productivity" becomes a fad when there is no internal motivation driving it forward, especially when the challenge start diminishing the return of the tasks. It can only be built up when there is internal motivation, external input to keep it going, and also an expectation that needs to be met.
Welp, hopefully I can get through this low energy period soon.
-Rui (70% through a book, hopefully finishing soon and get back on track soon)
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