Debunking The False Promises of Productivity

Everywhere you turn, there is a book that will “change your life” or a hack that promises to transform your efficiency. There is a near obsession with maximizing every second of every day, spurred by the pervasive assumption that if you can find the right tool and optimize enough, you will be able to “do it all.”

And if you can “do it all,” you will be happy and have time for the things that are important to you.

If you can master your time, you can master your life. 

These are the false promises of productivity.

The bad news is time can’t be mastered. You will never really be able to do it all. There’s simply too much. There are always more places to go, people to see, experiences to have, and things to knock off your list. 

The good news is you can let go of the guilt over never being able to “do it all” because it’s impossible. Read that again. It’s impossible. Since it’s impossible, it means you get to choose what IS possible, and instead of trying to do it all, do what matters.

Let’s debunk some of those false promises and consider the mental shifts you can make to encourage true change.

False Promise 1: Better time management means more time

It’s a common occurrence to lament our lack of time. How many times have you said:

“I don’t have the time…”

“I ran out of time…”

“There is not enough time in the day…”

We hold tight to the idea that we can make more time if we work hard enough. But the problem is never time. Every single day, we all have 24 hours to work with and optimizing every moment of the day doesn’t result in more time being added.

It comes down to too many priorities taking up what time there is.

Mental shift: Change “I don’t have time” to “It's not a priority”

Instead of thinking about your life in terms of time spent, think about it in terms of how many priorities you are juggling. Every instance where your instinct is to say, “I don’t have to…”, change it to “It’s not a priority to…”. It shifts your thinking pretty drastically and forces you to be more intentional about what you do. 

Remember, there are things that matter and things that don’t. Consider where the things YOU SAY matter are on your priority list.

Also, it’s okay to say some things are not priorities! Just because they have to be moved down the list doesn’t mean they won’t happen. If they keep getting moved down the list, maybe they are not priorities at all!

Read more in How to Juggle Priorities: Decide Which Balls Are Glass and Which Are Plastic.

False Promise 2: The right calendar/email/todo/project management software will help me get more done

I’m sorry to tell you that a new software or project management system will not solve all your problems. 

The tactical things I teach (including the tools and software options I share on this blog), while incredibly helpful, are band-aid solutions to bigger issues. They will briefly make you feel like you’ve made progress but will not fundamentally change things. Tools and software are often an attempt to jump to a solution before you have even articulated the problem. 

For fundamental change to happen, you have to get to the root of the problem, which (again) is an overabundance of priorities. 

When there is too much to do and too many priorities, the solution is not to work harder and more. Part of the solution is to work smarter, which is what those tools and software will help you do. However, the other, more important part is to evaluate why you have an impossible number of tasks and responsibilities in the first place. 

Think about the decisions you are making about what you do and don’t do and why. 

Mental shift: What are the right things to do, and how do they fit into my life?

Instead of approaching these tools as the holy grail for getting your time under control and as a means to get more done, think about how they support you in getting the right things done. 

A tool or software is only as powerful as the process they enable.

If you know it’s impossible to do everything, what can you do that truly matters in the available time?

• What matters to you and why?
• What moves the needle forward for those things? 
• What makes it easier for you to live the life you want? 
• What enables you to spend time with the people who matter to you? 

Once you have narrowed down your priorities, then you can look at the tools and software options that could support your efforts to focus on them.

False Promise 3: Once you find a way to get it all done, then you will be happy

The idea that achievement, or getting things done, leads to happiness is false. The goalposts are always moving, and more things get added to the pile. Your happiness can’t rely only on getting more done and achieving goals because results are fleeting.

Working towards and achieving your goals is absolutely worth your effort. Hard things often require hard work. But sacrificing your current happiness by working all the time and because you think you will feel happy and fulfilled when you “get it done” or achieve something is a setup for disappointment. 

That feeling of disappointment even has a name: the arrival fallacy. The arrival fallacy is the false assumption that once you reach a goal, you will experience enduring happiness. More often, you move on to the next thing, barely acknowledging that you achieved something. 

Mental shift: Discover opportunities for happiness in the journey

The oft-referred adage, "Life is a journey, not a destination," (attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson), while a bit trite, is also true. 

The mental shift here is to focus on the process of making the journey. Success, and the feelings of happiness and fulfillment that can come with it, is in taking aim towards a goal and making progress. It’s the shift from being outcome-focused to process-focused. 

I wrote more about this in Take Aim: How To Reflect, Set Direction, and Make Progress In The Year Ahead.

Instead of assuming it will all be great once you "get it done" or "do the thing", ask yourself:

• What makes something worth doing?
• What are the fun parts?
• What are the parts that challenge you to think and be creative?

Try and find the joy along the way.

False Promise 4: After you get it all done, you can relax/travel/spend time with a loved one

I’ve written about this before, specifically in How I Learned to Not Defer My Life. The gist is, this is it. This is the life we get, and waiting “for things to calm down” or putting off the things that matter to you until “you have time” is futile.

In your immediate day-to-day life, you often rush around and hop from task to task, place to place, checking off your to-do's as you go, forgetting how easy it is for the important parts of life to pass you by. 

Mental shift: Time is not guaranteed, so don’t wait 

Whenever I think about waiting, I think of this quote from one of my favourite books, Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. It says,

“Waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.”

It always strikes me when I think about how often I notice myself waiting for a day or week to be over or the feeling of waiting for the weekend.

How many times have you said, 

“I thought I had more time…” or “Where did the time go…“

Time passes while you are busy. And yes, you have to go to work, take the kids to soccer, make dinner, clean the bathroom and do everything that is part of everyday life. But you can do all those things AND do things that matter to you. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Life can change very fast. Most people don’t regret the things they did; they regret the things they didn’t do. They regret the things they waited too long for and the lost opportunities for connections and experiences.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to take that trip, call that friend, try that hobby, or any other passion, interest, or dream you’ve been putting off. Take the first small step and see where it takes you.

Later is not guaranteed.

You can’t do it all, so do what matters

There are endless demands on your time, endless distractions vying for your attention, and always more tasks to complete and more things to do than you will ever get to.

Do what you can, but don’t be tricked by the false promises of productivity.

You can’t do it all, so make sure you do what matters.

If you want to be more intentional so you are working on the right things, book a chat with me to learn how I can help you.