7 Unproductivity Tips, or How to Be Sane in a World of Productivity

Everyone wants to improve/increase/enhance/amplify (I am very productive at expanding my vocabulary list!) productivity.

Everything around you is supposed to make you feel itchy for being more efficient.

What’s even more alarming is the ever-evolving tech that seems to whisper into your ear ‘you can do better’ from any software ticking into your face and detecting you idle after a two-minute-break.

The unquenchable thirst for improvement took a heavy toll on us after all. We stopped feeling the difference between innovation that makes you smarter and the innovation that chokes you.

Due to all the ads promising to power you up and boost you (you just need to try harder!), we do believe that the information, which we are fed on every nanosecond, could be actually digested faster.

If you keep your eyes open you will see the word ‘productivity’ stare at you from every corner. It seems like everybody wants to be entitled either as the productivity black-belted guru or at least the best employee of the month.

The articles on productivity hacks are so numerous that they could fill the digital ocean (and you could drown under the pressure of all these ‘you can do better’). But that’s a dead end for your work life fulfillment.

We seem to have reached the limit, and learning ‘unproductivity’ can be proclaimed our new true wisdom and secret knowledge.

That is why I am here to share with you seven priceless ‘unproductive’ tips that will guarantee your sanity in the world inflicted with the productivity bug.

🌟 Stay awesome

You are awesome as you are.

Stop bothering yourself with a question ‘Am I good productive enough’?

There will always be someone who will complete more daily tasks and excel at every assigned project and manage multi-tasking better than Julius Caesar himself (I assume, you will agree that one dreadful person perfectionist for one office is more than enough, yeah?)

🌟News junkie? No, thank you

Stop watching the news. I mean you know what they will show you…

There will be something about someone who will try to appeal to you with their strong opinion to make you feel guilty that you do not care. Then there will be someone who is filthy rich to make you feel jealous, and there will be pushy commercials in between.

And, for god’s sake, stop checking every notification on your phone.

🌟 Give your life quality the upper hand

Slow life is beautiful

Practice the philosophy of slow life and see why it is called well-lived life.

Make choice in favor of taking long walks, listening to good music, enjoying your meals and talking to your best friends for hours. Slow life is all about experience, which stays in your memory and builds up your personality.

Life is too short to waste it on rat races.

🌟 Never work after work

Work-life time balance is your main priority.

Make a rule to leave work behind at 7 pm and forget about it till 9 am of the next day or so.

Feeling horrified? Imagining the email boxes explode with piled-up letters, the office shut down and other disasters? Trust me, you let your imagination run wild in this particular case.

You can deserve the appreciative pat on the shoulder from your boss with your hyper-productivity but I bet that at that very moment you will be dreaming not to drop dead like that poor Japanese woman.

🌟Midweek is no worse than the weekend

It looks like an obligation to post on Sunday some picture proving that you know how to have fun. Is Wednesday somehow worse than Friday when it comes to feeling grateful and happy?

They invented a calendar for making your life more comfortable, not for enslaving you in the cage of social expectations!

🌟Delegate responsibilities

It is such a temptation to be irreplaceable in your professional field. There are some people who believe that if they ask for help or re-delegate their responsibilities there will come the official end of the world. No, it will not! Moreover, the art of delegating responsibilities is the core concept of the successful management!

🌟A clutter-free desk does not mean anything

I do not know when this obsession with chase for 'the tidiest workplace' award started. It is suddenly not enough that you keep it relatively clean but kind of sterile. Honestly, it is just maddening. Meanwhile, there is not even a remote connection between a clutter-free desk and your genius. Did you see Einstein’s desk ?

Almost anyone can find a job, earn a living and buy a car but as the most remarkable and brialliant thinker Maya Angelou put it: “I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life”.

You can always do better than that, you know.