Anti-Productivity: Doing everything and nothing

On why writing this essay is part of ‘the problem’, ‘the problem’ and why it really is not a problem.

We find ourselves in a certain position way too often. The day has passed, the early morning hours of our rising are long forgotten, the taste of the first cup of coffee is a faint notion on the tip of our tongues and the feeling of a warm blanket covering our bodies slips closer to becoming a reality again.

If you’re like me, you will find yourself wondering about the things that must have happened between opening your eyes for the, probably reluctant, first time and having them once again averted towards the ceiling hours later. What did I do today? Anything that will allow me to pat myself on the back and congratulate me on a busy but successful day? A quest mastered? Achievements unlocked? New items available?

But no, I’m running dry as I try to list my tasks. The goal of ‘wanting to state as many as I can remember’ turns into ‘what productive things did I do’. And I come to realize that sleeping in, having an extra cup of coffee as I lazily scroll through various social media pages and keep up with several friends and their lives while actively using my brain cells to forget the tasks that I should be using them for, I did not do anything ‘productive’.

Now, I did get dressed and ready to spend my entire day in front of various screens ranging from 6.4 inches to 36 inches. Activities included scrolling, swiping, tapping and furious button smashing. All in all, not ‘productive’. So much so, that I would consider it ‘Anti-productive’ even.

But there comes a key feature that needs to be handled with care as it unlocks the proper way to discuss this topic. Had I relayed my day to my Professor, he would have been the first to consider it a waste of precious study time, hence, deeming it ‘Anti-productive’. Were I to explain to my father that instead of applying for the scholarships he has been sending me over the course of the past few months, I was kicking monster-butt in Final Fantasy VII, he would shake his head and worry about my future, hence, considering this the epitome of ‘Anti-productive’.

We shall turn the key and open the door for a peek inside:

“I did a various amount of things, most have not been on my checklist and did not pose any pressing matter or significance, but I had decided to spend my day the way I did. I was pretty occupied.”

Assuming that ‘occupied’ equals ‘productive’, we are able to shift the narrative towards us, towards the person that has created and lived through the day as it has happened and will go down in history. And to us, we cannot correctly state we had been unproductive when time has passed and activites have been started and, maybe even, finished. This day could not have been wasted because it is part of our lives. We lived through this day, we have memories attached to this spot in a calendar. A spot among many but still a spot.

So, this ‘problem’. Is it really a problem when it is only other people who condemn it to be one? If we change our vocabulary to openly make us vulnerable and susceptible to the judgement of those that will point at us and call it ‘problematic’, then we cannot surface from it with a pure and peaceful conscience. ‘The problem’ starts to be one when we allow it to be treated as such.

How often do we willingly antagonize ourselves, poke at our own daily ‘non-achievements’ to have those around us think we understand that our behavior was a problem? Is it to comfort ourselves or to comfort said other person?

“Gosh, I did nothing but play videogames today!”

Turns to:

“Can you believe I did nothing but play videogames today? Such a day wasted and all my assignments are still untouched, I’m doing so poorly.”

Justification. But for what? Who will feel better? Will you feel better after you had the time to lick your wounds clean from someone agreeing on how ‘poorly you’re doing’? Will it make you view yourself in a better light after you identified it as a ‘problem’ that needs solving — but for another day, because this one is wasted already, of course.

This essay is a form of justification as well. In several ways. I am here, trying to convince you of the importance of vocabulary when referring to yourself and making you see that your ‘non-achievements’ are achievements of their own, that your ‘Anti-productivity’ is a valid form of productivity reaped from your day. But I am also justifying the rather banal desire of mine to have spent an hour writing this essay after a whole day spent unmoving in a chair and playing videogames instead of doing my piling up assignments.

No one can tell me I was not productive. Why? Because I said so.