Productivity isn’t Inherently Good

At some point approaching adulthood you came to the overly simplistic fundamental assumption: ”Productivity is Good”. This is true… sometimes. There is nothing inherently good¹ about productivity. Sure, if you’re productive, then by definition you produce a result… but results aren’t inherently good either. The world already has results. Too many, in fact.

• Does the “productive activity” make you happy?

• Does the result make you happy?
• Does it make the world better?

When you want to be productive and can’t, then it feels like “productivity is good”, but that ignores the question of why do you want to be productive in the first place?

Productivity is bad if:

1. you’re not enjoying the process, and the results aren’t outweighing that
2. because the results are unnecessary
3. because the results are bad
4. achieving results that are worth the 3 Personal Resources you’re using and that result cannot be achieved via more enjoyable

Productivity is good if:

1. The results are truly worth the suck
2. If the process doesn’t suck and the results are okay

Productivity is great if:

1. The results are good, and the process is enjoyable

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Source §

• self

Related §

• Love the Process
• Results are not Presence

Footnotes §

1. …or bad… but who’s arguing that? ↩