Break the loop: Five steps towards tackling productivity dysmorphia

Step 1: Define productivity for yourself. What is it that you seek to do or achieve in each day, week, month and year? Factor in personal goals such as vacation time and family dinners; targets such as developing a new hobby or reclaiming an old one.

Step 2: Conduct a time audit. What are your actual working hours, and do they need to expand or contract? Are there inefficiencies that could be eliminated (such as the failure to delegate)? What kinds of time sinks are leaching hours and energy from your day (this would include doomscrolling, and binge-watching instead of sleep)? “A time audit is a crucial life tool,” says Chakravarthy. It leads to the crucial question: How many of the goals listed earlier are within reach, and how can one realistically work towards them?

Step 3: Embrace flexibility. Working methodically to a plan of one’s making is a healthy way to reclaim definitions of productivity. But any such plan must accommodate flux. A cancelled morning run should not feel like a failure, because it isn’t one. A blip in the schedule shouldn’t be seen as a collapse of the system, because that’s not what it is.

In order to turn down the noise from some of that internalised capitalism, one must stop viewing oneself as a sort of sentient machine. Move away from competition (whether with oneself, one’s peers or the shiny strangers online) and aim, instead, for balance.

Step 4: Build a sense of self-appreciation. List or celebrate tasks done well and goals when they are met. Watch out for the critical inner parent voice, says clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Priyanka Varma of The Thought Co. The work culture of the tech age, with its constant stress on accommodating change, unlearning and relearning (all of which are good things), can foster in the individual a sense that they are not good enough. “It’s important to note how one can do better, but it is equally crucial to acknowledge what one has done right.”

Step 5: Reactivate the off button. Make the time to occasionally cease all activity, as producer and consumer. Try to carve out a little time in which you are just you (not a parent or child, a sibling or friend). Are you at peace when there is nothing to do? Are you at rest, when at rest? Make the time to switch the answers to yes.