Rethinking Productivity: Less Hustle, More Harmony, More Energy

“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” ~Lao Tzu

I can hear the voices now:

“You should be disappointed in yourself” (for not taking the SATs in seventh grade).

“Don’t be lazy like [fill in a not-so-studious sibling/cousin]!”

“You need to work harder or else you’ll fall behind.”

“Always be analyzing, analyzing, analyzing!”

“We need to improve our operational efficiency or ELSE.” Or else what?

My mind became a boiling stew of negative self-talk, heavy thoughts, and beliefs that didn’t serve me. Throughout my entire life, from an immigrant Asian family to corporate leaders fixated on metrics, the voices have been consistent:

You’re not doing enough.

From a young age, I’ve been indoctrinated (without consent) into the school of thought that “you better work hard or you’ll get left behind.” I got sucked into the hustle and grind culture and became fixated on productivity.

But it never felt enough. The promotions, the raises, the accolades, the praise—they never satisfied the part of me that felt like I was never enough. There was the constant, compulsive need to do MORE.

As the productivity gurus say, you need to master time management. But while striving to manage time, I realized this:

Time was really managing me.

Any time I freed up from being more efficient, I’d fill up with more busyness. I constantly spent my energy on the past or the future. Never in the present moment.

Eventually, I burned out. Life became miserable. It sucked the joy out of life.

During my lowest point, one evening, I sat at a local park and stared into the abyss. Questioning the meaning of existence and why I wasn’t enjoying life anymore.

In a miraculous moment, a two-year-old toddler waddled toward me with boundless joy and hugged me. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

The toddler’s mother apologized to me. With a softened heart, I reassured her, “Please don’t apologize. I needed that.”

The greatest teacher I could have had at that moment was a two-year-old who barely knew his right hand from his left. The lesson? My achievements don’t define my self-worth. Self-acceptance isn’t determined by how much I’ve accomplished. Love is unconditional.

And that began the journey of rethinking my life. And rethinking productivity.

It wasn’t until I began examining my inner world more consciously that I was able to rewire my programming and shift the paradigm completely.

Through individual therapy work, meditation, and letting go of old beliefs, I learned the very thing so innate to each and every one of us:

Nothing more to do. Nothing more to be. Just enough. Always enough.

The next truth I gained along the journey was that I could still be “productive” and enjoy my life.

In the rough landscape of hustle culture, we often find ourselves racing against the clock, trying to squeeze an extra drop of efficiency out of every second. As a result, it sucks the soul out of our lives.

If this were a cooking show, we’d be moving around the kitchen at a frantic pace strictly following the ultimate recipe: “success.”

Yet somehow, through all our hustling and bustling, we lose sight of the most important ingredient: energy.

It’s how we show up in the world. How we show up for each other. How a two-year-old toddler joyfully embraces a stranger. 

Without our vital energy, we can’t be our best selves and do our best work. We can’t create that culinary masterpiece that evokes joy in the world.

While it’s something kids have naturally, we adults need to relearn what this feels like.

As reality has it, the relentless push toward productivity often leads us to a paradoxical outcome: burnout; a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion; and working from a depleted place (no energy) that creates work that feels… lifeless. 

Following the cooking metaphor, let’s consider a more harmonious approach to getting things done.

Sprinkling Life Energy into the Productivity Stew