🎯 Productivity

In 2023, I had too much on my plate. To be honest, that’s been true for most of my adult life, but 2023 was when I actually sat with it. Work projects, finances, psychology research (don’t ask), exercise routines, new technology, new shows. I had built a careful system around all of it. A routine that felt like it was moving me somewhere. Then I had to travel. A week away from home, somewhere I didn’t particularly want to be. I couldn’t do even a fraction of what I normally did. By the first afternoon, a feeling I recognized immediately had settled in: guilt. Not the guilt of having done something wrong. The other kind. Productivity guilt. The sense that by stepping away, I was somehow betraying my own ambitions. ...

At some point I noticed I couldn’t tell which video I actually wanted to watch. Not in a “too many options” way. More like: I’d be scrolling through Instagram or YouTube, something would catch my eye, I’d watch it, and by the end I couldn’t tell you if it had been worth my time. Everything registered as roughly the same signal. I was consuming a lot and feeling like damn, I’ve just spent too much time on “entertainment” again. ...