I spoke with my friend Dana last night.
Since we’re both trying to make things happen in our professional lives, it’s no wonder we bumped into the subject of productivity.
For the readers who have been following this newsletter for years, you know my stance on productivity. I swing back and forth between the “rah-rah” motivation guy and the tactics/tricks/tips/cheat codes guy.
I’ve sort of treated my brain and body like a robot to make this happen. In many ways, I like that. I get up at the same time every day. I write for this newsletter every day. I make small, deliberate progress every day.
But not really. I say it’s every day, but it’s not.
In reality, it’s most days. Maybe 95% or more.
100% is impossible. Life has a really effective way of knocking things out of whack.
So, recently, I’ve been feeling I should talk more about practical productivity and expectations.
And then, Dana nailed it.
She shared an email she wrote recently about how we treat ourselves in our work and I knew I needed to share it with you all.
Here it is:
“I don’t believe that to be “productive” or a “professional” means I must “show up” daily.
I live my life as a human first. As a body first. As a soul first. My first priority is to those realities.
And if closing my work in personal or international crises will serve our humanity, our community, our bodies… then I’ll do it.
Other times, the call is to open. To push harder. To show up tired or on-empty.
But not this week.
There is no emergency to my work. So it goes quiet so other important aspects of life can take center stage. So I can do my work for the long haul. So I can resist the expectation that I operate like a production line maximized for efficiency but not for living.
I am body, not machine; more plant than engine.
Being a professional is respecting that even our professions are subject to Life.”
-Dana Ray
For a guy like me, who has been working (very hard) to turn myself into a robot, this resonated with me. Is my desire to be a production line just some relic from the industrial mindset? Maybe.
I’m not saying I have all the answers, but this struck me as a thought worth considering deeply.
The hard part isn’t being a robot. The hard part isn’t even being a human, really.
I think the hard part is knowing when to stop and when to push onward. And perhaps, even more important, managing one’s expectations.
And yeah, I’ll let you know if I ever figure that one out.