Some idle thoughts on 'productivity'

For as long as I can remember I’ve had issues with so-called ‘productivity’, maybe more specifically, the idea that things are only worth doing as long as they’re productive. What ‘productive’ means, is a bit fuzzy. This manifests in different ways:

• Feeling bad about enjoying my time doing fun things that don’t count as “productive”.
• Perfectionism, since I want my output at a task to be a certain quality.
• Anxiety trying or learning new things I might be “bad” at.

These are all a bit different, but I feel they’re related, and are something I’ve been working on for some time. In the past couple years I’ve tried to adopt a more….”just do it” mentality, and not be afraid of trying new things. This has worked pretty well in a few ways; I started running, hiking, lifting, and discovered I enjoy all those things, and can get better at them, I started learning piano, and am okay with the fact that I’m not very good at it yet, and I left a large tech company to work at an early-stage startup, something that I’ve been too risk-averse to do in the past.

These new things have all mostly worked out, but I think a big part of this is allowing yourself to mess up, “waste” time, etc. That’s something I’m still working on, not beating myself up for not getting things perfect, or missing a work out, or for trying something out and being bad at it.