There’s more to productivity than high or low
We think of productivity as present or absent, high or low. But productivity is also experienced in different ways. When you picture someone being productive, are they enjoying the process? Are they pushing and straining or does it feel more effortless and immersive?
Our society tends to have a “no pain, no gain” mentality around work. We see it as unpleasant, yet necessary. Most of us are introduced to work in school, where we spend the first decades of our lives pushing through many tasks we’d rather not be doing. It’s no surprise, then, that people continue associating productivity with an unpleasant experience.
Most productivity advice out there focuses on how to increase it. The goal is more productivity, not a particular experience of it.
Productivity can be achieved with force or eagerness—one feels better than the other
Most of the time, productivity feels like pushing. You push through your work despite feeling internal resistance to do so. You’d rather not be doing the work but know you need to, so you keep pushing. You have to force yourself to do it—I call it being forcefully productive.
Being forcefully productive feels very different from being eagerly productive. Have you ever felt eagerly productive? Not only were you productive, but you were genuinely eager to dive into the tasks? Whereas you push through your work when being forcefully productive, it feels like you’re being pulled through your work when being eagerly productive.
Eagerly productive people are better off
Why does it matter if you’re forcefully or eagerly productive? Either way, you’re getting your work done, right? There are a few reasons it matters:
- Psychological well-being. You’re more likely to experience unhealthy amounts of stress and strain when spending most of the time pushing through your work. In the long-term, this is a recipe for burnout. Eagerness in your work, in contrast, is often tied to both pleasure and meaning in your work, key ingredients for well-being.
- Engagement and vitality. This is related to psychological well-being. We spend a large proportion of our time working. It could either be a source of engagement and vitality that energizes you, or a source of resistance and strain that depletes you. Which sounds better? Is it controversial to propose that our work can and should be more enjoyable and exciting?
- Work quality. You’re more likely to do your best work when you feel pulled towards it. Eagerness enhances your creativity and cognitive functioning. Resistance depletes your cognitive resources.
ADHD brains are built to be eagerly productive
ADHD brains in particular do all they can to get out of work that requires pushing. Eagerness is what they’re looking for. That’s why you hyperfocus on particular topics and are often seeking out distractions—you’re looking for pulls, activities to eagerly pursue.
Unfortunately we rarely feel that eagerness towards the tasks we “should” be working on. This is because people lack strategies for turning pushes into pulls. Once you feel pulled towards more of your work, your ADHD minds will enthusiastically help you move forward. You’ll find yourself eagerly productive, more of the time.
The path to becoming eagerly productive: Less push, more pull
Put simply, the key to becoming eagerly productive in more of your work is less push and more pull. Typical productivity strategies such as task management decrease the push, which is a good start. But people rarely discuss how to increase the pull. In future articles, I’ll talk about the different types of Pull Techniques I’ve developed to do just that.