Productivity Isn’t Maturity
A therapist explains why there’s more to growing up than completing your to-do list
How do you measure real growth? As a therapist, this is a question I ask each of my clients. Because when we don’t have an answer, we tend to borrow society’s narratives about success and maturity.
One of these narratives is the belief that accomplishing more makes you more of a grown up. When we choose to live by this tenet of hustle culture, we often feel like we’re failing when our to-do list is unending, or when a peer has a more impressive resume.
The truth is that productivity is often more about regulating stress than it is about living a thoughtful, responsible life. So many of us use being busy, or what I call “anxious doing,” to calm ourselves down.
“Anxious doing” could look like:
- Overfunctioning for people who don’t actually need help.
- Completing unimportant tasks to avoid anxious thoughts.
- Striving to look impressive or “keep up” with others.
- Measuring success by how busy or tired you are.
When you use productivity to manage anxiety, it can become difficult to be more intentional about how you spend your time. This is because turning off your…
