The Productivity Myth That’s Making Solopreneurs Feel Like Failures | 121

(Note: This is a formatted and slightly edited, AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through. Please excuse any spelling, grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

 Productivity has had a really bad reputation, and honestly, I get it, but I still don’t like it. For years, it has meant to do more, work harder, hustle until you drop, but that’s not what productivity actually means. And as long as we keep believing that, we’re going to keep feeling unproductive even when we’re working ourselves to the ground. So today, we’re fixing that.

Hey, hey. Welcome back to the Cheers to Better Systems podcast. In the last episode, we broke down the three types of systems every solopreneur needs: business, life, and productivity.

And today, we’re zooming in on that third one because before we can talk about productivity systems, we have to step back and talk about what productivity actually means because a lot of us have been working off of a definition that’s setting us up to feel like failures and no more.

We are not doing that anymore. So this episode is going to be for solopreneurs who feel guilty when they rest, for business owners who feel unproductive even when they’re crushing it, and entrepreneurs who are tired of measuring their day by how much they checked off. So today, we’re gonna talk about why productivity has gotten such a bad rep and what productivity actually is, and it might not be what you think.

So this topic honestly kind of irks me. The way that people talk about it genuinely, like, makes me, like, so upset. Every time that I see advice like, “Stop trying so hard to be productive,” or, stop, you know, aiming to do… You know, like, that’s, that’s generally the advice I’ll see. Like, “Stop trying so hard to be productive.

Stop aiming to be productive.” You know? “Just because you’re unproductive doesn’t mean XYZ.” Like, the advice that they’re saying is the wrong thing. It makes it seem like the problem is trying to be productive, but that’s because we’re basing it off of a broken definition that is not true. So telling people to stop being productive or stop aiming to be productive doesn’t actually fix anything, and it just puts the blame on something that actually isn’t the blame.

And so that’s why we’re gonna talk about it in this episode because I really want to set the record straight. This is a very passion topic of mine. But before we get into it, come hang out in my free community if you’re not already there. I drop little thoughts like this as they hit me. Plus, we keep these conversations going long after the episode ends.

So the link is in the show notes. Come hang out with us. Now, let’s get on my soapbox here because this word productive makes so many people cringe, and before we can reframe it, we have to call out what is currently out there. So productivity has this bad reputation because it’s been hijacked by hustle culture.

It got equated with output. So more tasks, more hours, getting more done, when productive is not really that. So productive basically became our code word for being busy and exhausted because we started measuring ourselves like we are factories. We were measuring ourselves based on units produced, hours clocked, output per day, but we are not factories.

We are not assembly lines. Factories track productivity that way because they’re making products, right? We are not a product. We are a human running a business alongside a bunch of other life things. So when we see productivity in this way, we are essentially using “busy” as a badge of honor. So being busy has somehow became this thing that we prove we’re, quote-unquote, “doing something.”

We’re scared to be perceived as lazy or unproductive if we’re not constantly doing something. So if this is what you believe, you fill up your schedule to avoid that label. You avoid trying to be put the label of you’re not busy, that means you’re lazy, and that means you’re unproductive. So we have accidentally made productive mean busy. The second thing is there is this empty calendar trap that I’ve noticed, where having an empty calendar feels scary because, this might surprise you, because when there’s space on your calendar and someone invites you to do something that you don’t actually want to do, now you feel pressured to say yes.

You no longer have something to back up your no with, right? Whereas if you had something, let’s say someone invited you to go to a party on Saturday, and you really don’t want to. So if you put something on your calendar, you can easily be like, “Oh, nope, sorry I can’t, I already have other plans.” But if your calendar were empty, now you’re forced to say something different.

Now it makes it certain that it’s a decision, right? Where it’s always a decision, but now it’s very evident that it’s a decision. If your calendar is empty and someone invites you to a party, you’re now having to say no, and either that’s it like, “Oh, no, not going to make it”, or, you know, or a lot of cases, some people feel bad and they’ll be like, “Ugh, yeah, I’ll go.

You know, I don’t have anything on my calendar,” even though you really wanted to say no. So we end up filling up our calendar with stuff on purpose just to have an excuse to say no. So again, we’re doing things all wrong because we’re focusing on the wrong problem. So this misconception makes you feel like you’re unproductive any time you slow down, even though slowing down is sometimes exactly what you need.

You measure your day by how much you checked off your to-do list, not by how much you actually got done. We’re not tracking the little things. We’re not tracking the little wins. And when you take a nap, when you go rest, it feels like cheating, it feels like you’re lazy, it feels like you’re being unproductive.

Saying no to something feels weird. It feels like maybe you’re falling behind on something. It feels like you, um… Maybe it makes you feel guilty. And so you stay stuck being overwhelmed, even though you’re working really hard. So the real cost becomes you burning out, you’re resenting your business, you’re working harder on the wrong things, you’re saying yes to things you really wanted to say no to, and then still feeling like you’re never enough, your business is never enough.

And this is not what productivity is. Not for humans, not for us running businesses. So here is my definition of productivity, so I can set the record straight again because it’s been a while since I’ve had an episode like this. So productivity is doing the right things in alignment with your capacity sustainably.

It’s about whether what you’re doing is actually moving you forward in your life and business, and it’s about focusing on quality and alignment, not the opposite, okay? So real productivity is made of being efficient, so that means getting things done with less friction, not more effort. It means resting, okay?

Resting, that is a huge one that it makes me so sad that so many people still struggle with this. Rest is what makes the time that you’re awake actually productive. So yes, ugh, there’s a whole episode I have on rest. Go back and listen to that. Rest is key, is a key ingredient to actually being productive.

It’s also alignment with capacity, so you’re working in a rhythm that is actually supporting what you actually feel right now, your actual energy, the time that you actually have, the season of life that you’re in, the curve balls that life has thrown at you this week. It means you’re working with all of those things being true, not aiming to work as if none of them weren’t.

You know you are setting yourself up for success in a way that supports your capacity, your real, honest, true capacity. It also means doing the right things instead of all the things. And it’s about knowing what to skip, what to say no to, what you don’t want to do. That is what productivity actually means to me.

So in a day-to-day, this is what this could look like. It can mean, like, you going to take a nap in the afternoon before you pick up your kids from school because you just wanted to. I do that a lot. I do that a lot. Okay? If I feel tired, if I feel like I did not get my full rest the night before, I have a tracker that I use to help me stay on top of the amount of sleep that I’m getting.

If my body tells me I am tired, I go take a nap. Even 15 minutes is enough to give me a power boost. Taking a nap. It means saying no to a project that wasn’t aligned even though your calendar would have allowed it to. And this could be in business, so collaborations. It could also mean your personal life.

It could look like setting a boundary that protects your focus time even though it might upset someone else. It means deciding not to do something at all. If you feel like you haven’t spent time taking care of yourself and you have a day where you originally were meant or supposed to, quote-unquote supposed to, work on your business because you had the day off from, you know, your day job.

But you’re like, “You know what? When do I ever have a whole day to myself while my kids are still at school? I’m not at work, my husband’s at work, and I just wanna go catch up on my shows?” I’ve done that. I have done that. It means not feeling guilty about the things that are going to light you up. Okay? So there’s so many more examples that I could go through here, but  pretty much what I’m trying to get at is that productivity is not equated with output.

So when people are saying these things, when they’re saying, “Stop trying to be,” you know, “productive,” the word needs to change. We’re trying to say stop trying to maximize or stop trying to produce more output when you have low capacity. Stop trying to produce more output when you have low capacity, low energy, not so great systems in all of the areas that would actually help you produce more output.

That’s okay. Know in the moment what your body actually needs. Okay? So yeah, working a four-hour focus work day with truly aligned work is going to be more productive than you working for 10 hours feeling super tired. So the old story that we need to stop telling ourselves is productivity equals output.

It does not. Rest does not equal lazy. Saying no doesn’t mean you have to feel like you’re falling behind or that you need to be guilty. Doing less does not mean you’re not doing enough. The new story I want you to tell yourself is that productivity is doing the right things sustainably in alignment with your capacity.

Rest is part of your obedience. Rest is part of your obedience. Saying no means that you’re protecting what matters, your time, your capacity, your energy, your calendar. And doing less means that you’re going to do more of the right things better. And that is going to take you so much further than these old stories that you may have been telling yourself.

And because I’m an affirmation girly, here are some affirmations that you can come back to whenever the old story tries to creep in, because you cannot just get rid of the negative thoughts. You have to intentionally replace them with good thoughts. So here are some good thoughts, some good affirmations for you to replace those old stories with.

I’m not behind. I’m being intentional. Rest isn’t the opposite of productive. It’s part of it. Doing the right things matters more than doing all the things. I really hope that you take those with you and you stop telling yourself the lies of these old productivity definitions. Come join us inside of the free community where we keep these conversations going.

Share the old story. Come and make a commitment, a public declaration of the old story that you’re letting go of and let us know what you’re going to fill your heart and mind with, the new story. It is amazing to get encouragement and see encouragement from other solopreneurs who are trying to unlearn the same thing.

So go to the show notes, that is where you can find the link to join my free community. I am so happy that you’re here and that we got to clear up what productivity is not and I shall see you in the next one. Cheers to better systems, less overwhelm and more peace.