Spotting Toxic Productivity and Overcoming It

The pressure to keep being productive can actually lead to toxic productivity. What is toxic productivity, and how can you deal with it?

Rina is a private-sector employee who works diligently. While her coworkers spend eight hours a day at the office, she can spend 9-10 hours. Overtime with coffee or instant noodles is common for her. If she has no tasks to do, Rina becomes extremely restless. Outside working hours, she joins many seminars to improve her skills. Rina always ignores her friends' advice to rest.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rina worked from home, but the habits above stayed with her. For hours she stared at the computer screen, even eating and drinking while working. The moment she woke up, Rina was already checking reports and getting ready for meeting. Sometimes she complained of not feeling well or being sick, but still forced herself to work. Rest is a waste of time, she said. She was afraid she would not be able to achieve the life she dreamed of.

Without realizing it, Rina has fallen into toxic productivity.

Why People Get Trapped in Toxic Productivity?

The story above is fictional. However, you may find similarities between Rina's experience and your own life. In order to reach your targets and dreams, combined with intense competition, you may be driven to practice toxic productivity. You feel guilty when resting or not doing something.

Toxic productivity is an unhealthy obsession with staying productive at all times, no matter the method or the cost. You want to achieve or produce more than other people, even if it means sacrificing your health and quality of life. Even more so during the pandemic, when work hours feel longer, meetings have no fixed schedule, and work calls can come at any time.

So, why can this mindset appear?

1. The Influence of Social Media and the Internet

Through social media, people can freely show off their achievements, especially in their careers. In addition, the culture of show off material achievements, such as money, cars, houses, and vacations, is widespread. This phenomenon spreads quickly and influences many people to pursue similar things in their own lives.

At first glance, there is nothing wrong with showing the public what you have achieved. However, this can create the wrong motivation. People end up working so hard without paying attention to their own needs or health. Meanwhile, what is shown on social media is actually an illusion. The same way does not necessarily produce the same results for other people.

So many social media accounts and tips on the internet glorify productivity and hard work. They can be a good motivation to direct your life, but be careful not to get trapped in an extreme or toxic work culture.

2. Targets or Dreams That Are Too High

It is natural for someone to have goals in life. For example, having a certain amount of savings by a certain age, reaching a manager position after a certain number of years of work, or building a business within a few years. All of that is good. In fact, life without goals is dangerous, because you will live without purpose.

On the other hand, you need wisdom in deciding the way and the time to reach your goals. There is no need to sacrifice everything, much less damage yourself, just to achieve all your dreams.

When you work ten to eleven hours a day just to make sure your boss sees your achievements, that is when productivity becomes a boomerang. Because you want to become an entrepreneur by age 30, then work so hard that you sacrifice your health, or save to the extreme for business capital, that is when toxic productivity takes over.

3. Worry About the Future

The condition of the world today is more uncertain and always changing all the time. Job security is becoming harder to predict. A study for the World Economic Forum in 2020 found that 54% of 12,430 respondents said they were worried about the stability of their jobs.

The problem is, this fear can lead to toxic productivity. A person's productivity is driven not by the desire to give more, but by fear of being unemployed. People are constantly chased by the urge to work more, keep adding skills, so they can feel secure at work. Sadly, instead of feeling safer, they become continually anxious.

Productivity That Ends Up Being Unproductive

The mindset of toxic productivity is an illusion. You look as if you are pushing yourself to grow and produce more. In reality, you sacrifice so many important things in life in pursuit of empty dreams. Instead of reaching your goals, you end up exhausted, frustrated, and even experiencing burnout, where all motivation to work drops to zero.

The loss of boundaries between work and personal life increases the risk of burnout. A March 2021 report from the employment agency Indeed noted that 52% of 1,500 workers in the United States suffered burnout because of the loss of boundaries between work and daily life. In addition, 27% of respondents said they were unable to disconnect from work (unplug).

Speaking of health, working without enough rest will reduce the body's performance, from memory, concentration, and decision-making ability, and it can even lead to death. In Japan, the term karoshi appeared for people who die from working too long. Surely you do not want this, do you?

Time that you should set aside for relationships and friendships is also used for work. As a result, you feel alone, lonely, and vulnerable to depression. Even though close relationships and friendships are very important for attaining a happy life.

In short, toxic productivity is not the answer for increasing our productivity. So, how can we be productive in the right way?

Tips for Achieving Healthy Productivity

Practice the following three ways so that your productivity does not become toxic to you:

1. Dedicate Your Work to God

Begin by realizing who you are really working for. As Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly, as for the Lord and not for people.”

Perhaps all this time you have worked as hard as you can to please your boss or yourself. Now, try to imagine that you work for God and for His glory.

If you work for God, would you be willing to wear yourself out? If you dedicate your career to God, can you begin working without having your quiet time?

You may work hard, but remember that the outcome is in God's hands. As written in Psalm 127:2, “It is useless for you to rise early and stay up late, eating bread earned by painful toil, for He gives to His beloved while they sleep.”

2. Balance Personal Life and Career

A right life is a balanced life. You need a balance between work and rest so that you remain healthy and ready to face challenges.

Still not convinced about this?

Genesis 2:2-3 records, “By the seventh day God had finished the work He had made, and on the seventh day He rested from all the work He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had done.”

Even almighty God rested after completing His work. Is this not a sign that we also need work-life balance? You need a break from work, not only to please yourself, but also to connect with God. Remember that Jesus, even in the midst of His busyness, still made time to communicate with His Father (Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35).

True success can only be attained through time planning and a balanced life.

3. Work Smarter, Not Harder

Working smart means working with the right strategy and priorities, so that each day truly becomes a productive day.

The amount of time spent finishing work is not the benchmark of whether you are productive. The way you do and complete your tasks is what determines whether you are working productively or not. Moreover, with the thin boundary between work and everyday life during the WFH period (work from home), being wise in managing work time becomes an important skill.

Here are tips for work smart:

• • Create a system and strategy for doing the things that are your top priorities, as well as when the deadlines are.
  • Stay focused on that plan. If there is a task request that will likely consume your focus, decline it politely until the main work is finished. Keep away from distractions (chat, email, notifications from phone apps) so that your work can be finished more quickly in a short time.
  • If necessary, delegate your work to others, if you have the authority to do so. That way, you can focus on the work you really must handle.

• Evaluate what has been done. Measure the results: How much time did you need? Do you need more workers (manpower)? Do you need other tools / software that can increase your productivity? By continually evaluating, you will become more effective, productive, and efficient, both in terms of time and energy.

Above all, what is no less important is asking for wisdom from God, so that you can work productively. Because does not that wisdom come only from the Lord (Proverbs 2:6)?

Working smart can also open many opportunities for you. As stated in Proverbs 22:29, “Do you see a person skilled in his work? He will stand before kings, not before obscure people.”

Productivity That Glorifies God

Your work, just like your life, comes from God. Therefore, it is only fitting that everything you do glorifies God. So, being productive alone is not enough, being productive and glorifying God, that is the true combination.

Do not let toxic productivity drain your life and become an endless vicious cycle. Leave behind standards or unrealistic achievements that do not help you.

Be productive in your work so that you have time for other things, such as family, social life, yourself, God, community, the environment, and so on. In that way, you are not only productive, but also impactful for the world, because your life becomes an inspiration to many people. Amen!

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References: www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/10/19/bbmore-than-half-of-workers-worldwide-fear-theyll-lose-their-jo#:~:text=The%20poll%20of%2012%2C430%20people,cease%20in%20the%20next%20year www.indeed.com/lead/preventing-employee-burnout-report www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/am-i-right/201204/real-happiness-isnt-feeling lucemiconsulting.co.uk/work-smarter-not-harder

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