F*ck Productivity

These days, every time I see a post about how to be productive working from home or how to optimize online meetings, I fume.

"We're in a pandemic!" I mutter to myself, to counter the cognitive dissonance.

When I see "How to Be More Productive" tips on Facebook as a response to the COVID pandemic, I want to scream.

This is probably going to lose me some Facebook friends, but it needs to be said:

Fuck productivity. No, seriously. Fuck productivity.

Anyone telling you that you need to optimize your time right now is deep in their own freak-out and acting like a robot.

Posting about how we can optimize our work output during this crisis feels off when so many of us are losing jobs and afraid our loved ones will fall sick (if they're not sick already). Reaching for quick fixes points to a deep denial about what is going on.

We Need To Name What’s Here

Earlier this week, I attended a two-day digital event where the facilitator never mentioned Coronavirus, even though half the guests in the world were on lockdown. To move through the agenda as so many of us struggled to stay present was surreal, and more cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance happens when we're in a stress response and we don't know how to orient in a given situation. As leaders, it is not a healthy place to be.

COVID has created a new reality and most of us are coping the best we can, trying to catch up to the new normal. Instead of clinging to my to-do list, I need ways to acknowledge and process my fear and the suffering around me.

I need the new reality reflected back to me by people who share my vision and my values. I need to make meaning with my communities, my networks, my family, and my friends. 

Self-Care, Not Self-Optimization 

If you're guilty of pushing productivity advice on people during this crisis, it's okay. I’ve done this too.  Many of us have.

All I’m saying is that talking about productivity is not the best thing right now. While we are going to need to learn how to run better meetings and be more productive in the digital space, right now, we need to do first things first.

We are not machines. We are not factories. So I'm telling you right now, you do not need to focus on being productive. You do not need to self-optimize through a global crisis.

Let go of the expectation that you need to do more, that if you do these things, you will regain a sense of normalcy and control. It’s an illusion.

Right now, you need to focus on you, on the people you care about, and on the communities you love.

I have talked to so many mothers who are overwhelmed with the demands of suddenly running “Mommy School” at home, while trying to create a stable, healthy home environment in isolation.

Caring for yourself and your family means centering and prioritizing your needs, not external expectations of what you should be doing right now. I know that this is easier said than done.

We need time and space to breathe. At this stage, you need to focus on your health and wellbeing, and on the mental health and wellbeing of everyone you care about. 

Our social distancing is likely to be measured in months or longer. Wherever we look, there is a sense of sudden loss and deep uncertainty. 

As leaders, it is more important than ever that we become the inspired architects of our self-care.

We need to focus on being as healthy and happy as we possibly can be, in our circumstances, because this is the new normal. 

COVID is the New Normal

Each of us will soon know someone who is affected by COVID. We're all going to need to show up for each other in ways we haven't before.

That’s why I resist anyone implying that what we need is to get our work done. Getting our work done is not the point.

I get that managers need something to manage, to top up on the familiar sense of power and control they get from their work.

Only in this new world, power and control aren’t enough to make us feel safe anymore.

That's probably why the old methods of self-care aren't working either, but that's a subject for my Friday workshop (Sign up here).

Here’s the thing.

You can be as powerful as one the 26 billionaires that own more than half the wealth on the planet, and still lose someone to COVID. You can have the control of a world leader who governs a country, and still be paralyzed about what to do next.

Power and control don't work like they used to, which is not to say they don't work at all. We are likely going to see more visible mechanisms of power and control in our societies as the need for global lockdown continues.

Practicing Presence in New Ways

For those of us alive right now, for the lucky ones of us reading this in our homes in relative safety, power and control aren't enough anymore.

We need something more to see ourselves through this, something born of togetherness, something that emerges from having the courage to see what is real and name what is happening.

If you're trying to continue business as usual, working from home as if this was a sick day out of office, I suggest you reevaluate before the circumstances force you to. Take it from me, business as usual is simply not going to be sustainable.

I encourage you to stop trying to finish all the lesson plans your kids' schools sent you to do this week, and give yourself a minute to lie on the floor and breathe.

You set the tone for your experience. You get to decide how you navigate this. You get to create the cocoon of your household. How you feel is up to you.

Breathing, being present with our bodies, is one of the hardest things we can do right now, because it demands we recognize where we are. And where we are is pretty scary.

But we do have power. We have power over our own actions to care for ourselves and our communities by doing our part.

We do have control. We can control how we respond to our needs and the needs of others around us. 

Taken together, in a family, in a network, in a community, this adds up to a lot. There are going to be massive challenges, sure. But we are already living in the new COVID reality. What we do now is up to us.

To the Productivity People

To the voices telling us how to run more efficient meetings and get our work done — just give it a minute. 

Take a breath. Be present to what's happening around you. Reorient yourself.

And when we've had a chance to get settled, you're welcome to tell us how to run better Zoom meetings. By all means, we’ll need you to.

But give us a minute to grieve first.

Give us a minute to catch up with friends and family, who we worry about incessantly and can’t hug.

Give us a minute to figure out how I make time for ourselves now that our movements are limited and we’re sharing space inside.

Give us a minute to figure out how to rest, relax, and how to sleep without checking social media to see if the world is still there.

Have some compassion and give us a minute to process, please. And get with the program: it's a pandemic. People are losing people. People need support.

If you don't know how to do that, that's okay. We're all working on it. Figure out how to be present with the people who need you without needing to make everything okay.

Not everything needs to be optimized. At a time like this, how can productivity be what matters? We need to imagine new ways of supporting, connecting, being.

Everything is not okay, and it's not going to be for a while. We're in a new world, and we need to co-create it together.

We are not going to pretend that it's business-as-usual.

We need to give ourselves and each other some breathing room. We need space. And more than ever, we need connection.

If you’d like to explore self-care with me, I’m offering an online workshop. You can sign up here.

Thanks for reading and be well.