In Praise of (Un)productivity
Work is what you do well for a few hours of the day—not all of them
Over a Zoom meeting, a co-worker of mine said they worked better at home at the height of New York’s lockdown. I sighed and turned off my camera. I was already muted. People, I shall say well-adjusted knowledge workers, tend to do this thing. They worship at the altar of productivity, their work acting as a placeholder for their identity, personalities, even relevancy.
I’m incredibly grateful to work a cushy communications job that immediately switched to remote work on March 13, 2020. The “Friday the 13th”, when most of New York City went into lockdown at the same time due to the coronavirus pandemic. The introverted extrovert in me was immediately elated, happy to trade real clothes for athleisure and to edit copy while donning a lux K-beauty sheet mask on my face. I also immediately created fake appointments on my calendar so I could write, read, listen to podcasts, have lunch with my partner, play with my cat, and doom scroll while my co-workers thought I was in meetings. I was doing work on my own time and I had no shame.
The fact is, my employer received enough hours of my life while I was working more traditionally in the office. I had given them more than eight hours a day for nearly three years, eating lunch while replying…
