Productivity is not proof of life.
You are not the sum of how much you get done.
It’s hard to think when one’s thoughts are constantly interrupted. Of course, this has always been the case, reveries broken by thoughts of laundry and dinner and pickups and drop-offs. But in a digitally connected age, we can act upon these thoughts immediately, which stops us from a) considering whether or not these thoughts need to be acted upon, b) disciplining our minds to hold these thoughts at bay until the appropriate time, and c) thinking deeper about, well…stuff like this.
This cycle of interruption leading to immediate action is causing me to distrust my own mind. I find myself constantly checking my phone, not to respond to notifications - they’re all turned off - but to confirm a thought I was having, double check a fact that I just looked up and, increasingly, confirm some Google map directions I just glanced at. In my Protestant-raised brain, there is always something you could and probably should be doing, and your phone enables you to do it. There is nothing you cannot check, correct, confirm, schedule, list, notify, or buy from your phone at any time, so you probably should, right?
It is true that to reduce anxiety we should try not to leave until tomorrow that which could be accomplished today, but there are in fact some things that should be left until tomorrow. I feel like some of the milder cases of diagnosed ADHD are worsened because of our ability to act upon every impulse at the moment it occurs. There is no barrier to entry, no closed sign on the shop front or velvet rope outside the club (or, in my case, the fridge!). If you can do it now, why wouldn’t you?
Then there’s the expectation of others that, because you have a phone and an internet connection, you should be available and responsive at exactly the same times that they are. There is a new etiquette; if I can see you’re online and you do not respond, you are being very rude. But if it’s 11pm on a Saturday and your boss can see you’re online, that should not compel you to respond to them. However, we feel anxious and guilty and we wrestle with ourselves, and let’s be honest, a tiny part of our fragile ego is flattered to be needed, and we feel validated and useful because we were only reading or sketching or playing guitar or writing a diary or watching our kid play football, and none of that can possibly be as important as what our boss needs, right? Wrong!
Productivity is not proof of life, but if we don’t wrestle back our time, our attention, and our own sense of peace and self-worth, The System can convince us otherwise. There are many charts like the one below that show, although productivity in the economy has shot up, wages haven’t kept up. Most people in the developed world are not benefiting from all this productivity so stop being a slave to it!
Average wages (solid line) vs GDP per hour worked (dotted line) in the G7 from 1990 to 2020
Budget your time, not just your money
As sensible grown up I would hope that you, roughly, budget your salary but you need to budget your time too - not down to the minute but by hours per week. This is mine:
Sleep, 37.5%
Work, 20%
Family time (including meals), 15%
Hobbies (reading, writing, music), 10%
Socialising, 5%
Exercise, 2.5%
A.O.B (ablutions, commuting, doom-scrolling, housework, TV & movies), 10%
I’m not suggesting you set rigid goals and download yet more apps to track yourself, it’s more like reflecting on your week, perhaps in a journal, with use of your diary, and asking yourself was it balanced? Did you do more than just create value for shareholders? Did you invest in yourself and your family, and friends too? Because we’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.
When I was a youngling the BBC would go off sometime in the early hours of the morning with a slow-motion Union flag fluttering beneath the strains of ‘God Save The Queen’. The internet should do the same thing. Shops need to close, people need to sleep, or sometimes just doze an d take the weight off their minds and their feet. Seasons should be headed.
Reed Hastings, the co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, once famously said, “Sleep is my greatest enemy.” That should tell you everything you need to know about the CEOs currently competing for your time as well as your money. In a subscription economy engagement is everything, that’s why they’re building AI companions and answer-engines that cause you to ignore your friends and family, and distrust your own brain. The only way to resists is to step back, log off and understand that productivity is not proof of life. Good luck.
To Do List
My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:
There’s LOTS of gigs coming to Singapore so let me list you some:
My upcoming UK trip happily coincides with the centrist dad’s dream line up of James Marriot in conversation with Dominic Sandbrook about his book, ‘The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society’. Get tickets for 16th June at Union Chapel in London and I’ll see you there:
I’ve had a busy brain lately so have been chilling out to the latest from Japanese ambient artist Hirosho Ebina, represented by Kitchen Label here in Singapore. Float away with his new album ‘On Solitude’.
Finally, Starman, John Carpenter’s 1984, tenderly observed alien arrival movie starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen has found its way onto Netflix. I had completely forgotten about this film from my youth but I watched it this week and it was delightful.
Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, N