Do This Instead to 10x Productivity

A follow up to yesterday's post about the whole 10x productivity conversation. 

In the time since I wrote and published yesterday’s post about 10xing your productivity, I’ve thought about what bothers me about the general productivity conversation on social media.

Turns out being more productive isn’t what vexes me.

Rather, the splinter irritating me is the manner in which the topic is paraded constantly across online platforms as the epitome of success.

Here are 3 realizations I made upon reflection of my previous rant post:

1. I am not the ideal audience for 10x productivity posts on LinkedIn like the ones I described. It’s absolutely okay for people to share what matters to them and engage with an audience about a topic within their areas of interest. 10xing productivity is a popular topic. Plenty of people appear to be interested in talking about it. Wonderful. I move in a different lane (see number 3).

2. Being more productive isn’t what I have an issue with. Getting more of the right things done and less of the wrong ones in a way that fits my current life rhythm is something I actively practice which is a form of enhanced productivity but doesn’t fall perfectly into the 10x category and;

3. The day I never see another meme yelling at me to #hustle can't come soon enough. I’m at a place in my life where gentle productivity is more appealing than the grind associated with hustle culture which has dominated the online landscape for years and also is held up as a mantle of massive success.

10x Productivity Looks Different to Me 

I was raised by parents who modeled the benefits of being productive. Whether at ten times the usual pace or no times at the usual pace, getting things done is important to me.

I also learned from them about weaving quiet time into each day and honoring the natural ebb and flow of being human.

Which, if we are keeping the productivity variable scale active here, would fall to a -10x. 

Like the proverbial farm metaphor so aptly illustrates, we humans experience seasons of planting, tending the soil, nurturing what we've planted, and harvesting what we grow.

In a culture that worships 10x productivity (or any other high variable here bordering on the extreme), it's too easy anymore to lose touch with these natural rhythms.

And it's costing us. Big time.

Burn out. Mental health issues. Negative addictions.

These effects are the tip of an enormous ice berg that's only getting bigger by the day. 

Here's the Thing

We can’t always harvest. Just like we can’t always lie dormant.

We aren't designed to always harvest or always lie dormant.

The sweet spot is a blend of both, along with becoming tuned in to our individual cycles of dormancy and harvest. And then honoring them without feeling guilty or worthless or any of the other negative emotions posts about not being uber productive can generate.

For too long the battle cry for 10x productivity at all costs has deafened too many of us. The pressure to constantly perform and produce at ever-increasing levels feels counterintuitive to life itself. Like a swarm of locusts, it threatens to decimate the fields of joy we are tending when doing work that matters, even if that work is slow and steady.

Is it valuable to eliminate what doesn’t serve us in favor of what does?

Absolutely.

But let’s not confuse 10xing anything with success.

In certain circumstances, the former may very well lead to the latter.

But the latter is most definitely not solely dependent on the former.