Being Productively Unproductive
As I sit to write this, on a Sunday afternoon, I am taking a well-earned (I think?) day off from ‘work’ (I use inverted commas because I’m a student, and my work is just reading and writing… which is pretty fun and not super work-y). Like most people, I feel like this is a pretty important part of life. We just can’t work all the time and we need regular time off to recover and recharge our batteries.
Sadly, a lot of my friends at uni (as far as I can tell) don’t take this approach and end up working, at least a little bit, every day of the week, often for the entire term. (I think this might be something particular to my uni — Oxford — and maybe a small group of others, where we have very short, very intense terms). I think this is a shame, because rest and relaxation are essential parts of the working week, helping to ward off stress, burnout and a wealth of other mental health issues.
Due to this, I have (for the most part) tried to force myself to take at least one full day off each week, every week. (I must admit that my course is on the less intense side of things, so this is rarely, if ever, difficult. However, I think this would be perfectly possible for any course, given a reasonable level of diligence the rest of the week). In doing this, I have found a good and a bad way of taking time off.
I’ll start with the bad.
This consists of something along the lines of: having work stuff to do, but remembering that it is my day off and spending the day going between vaguely non-work activities, e.g. watching Netflix, reading, seeing what my friends are up to, going for walks/runs, while mostly worrying about all the work stuff I have to do that week.
My general (non-scientific) view is that the above ‘day-off’ is probably less (genuinely) restful and relaxing, and probably more stressful, than an average reasonably productive work day. I’m forcing myself not to work, so can’t get any of the satisfaction of actually getting stuff done. But, I’m not really doing anything else in any serious way, so I also fail to get the full satisfaction of fun non-work activities. It seems a bit like the worst of both worlds.
I call acting in the above way, being ‘unproductively unproductive’. It is a way of being that I now try and avoid as much as possible.
Next, the good.
This consists of something along the lines of: engaging fully in activities I really enjoy/want to do, e.g. meeting someone I haven’t seen in a while for a coffee, organising a picnic, reading a book I’ve been really looking forward to, spending time with loved ones. While a lot of this may seem similar to the set of activities listed above, the main difference is in the approach: genuinely engaging with what I’m doing, and making an active decision not to think about work, rather than consistently worrying about not doing it.
A lot of people seem to think, if implicitly, that work is something that should be focused on and engaged with, while leisure activities (watching a show/film, reading, etc.) are most relaxing when taken in passively, without the same level of focus or engagement. While this may be true for some people, I find the opposite to be more true. If I’m not engaged in my time-off, my mind will drift to worrying about work, or any other part of my life that can be worried about. This feels much less like ‘time-off’ and relaxation to me.
As such, I now try and be ‘productively unproductive’ as much as possible. I feel like it increases all the benefits of leisure time and reduces the downsides. For me at least, it makes my days off vastly more restful and relaxing.
If anything I’ve written rings true to you, maybe you wanna try being productively unproductive. Let me know if you do!
However, as I’ve said, many people find that the opposite works for them. I’m sure this will be the case for many people. The point is to find what approach works for you.
After all, I’m not sure who wouldn’t want to learn about better ways of constructing a work-life balance that works for them.
