Rampant Productivity
Someway or another, I worked my way to this state of mind where I must constantly be productive. It's not necessarily a bad thing; I've been getting tons of work done. But occasionally I find myself doing something I think is not productive, and instead of calling it "fun" I call it "wasting time."
I'm not sure how I got to this point, but I don't believe I can ever get out. Instead of watching trivial one-shot sitcoms, I find myself making "progress" on serial shows that I'm watching in order. Is that anymore productive? To me it is. Considering it objectively, it's fairly obvious no television is productive (unless, of course, you're watching that new History Channel special on how Moses was an alien).
It's not just content-producing things like blog posts and working on programming projects that falls under "productive." It includes watching TED talks, eating lunch (although lunch is usually eaten in front of a TED Talk or Radiolab podcast), watching television...
It's like I've tried to optimize my entire life. In fact, it's not like that, that's simply exactly what it is.
Interestingly though, all activities taking place outdoors are completely exempt from any sort of optimization. In fact, there seems to be an "outdoor productivity factor" that makes anything I do outside that much more productive. For example, I feel more productive reading outside than I'm reading inside — probably borne from my fear of not going outside enough and the correlation I've formed in my mind between being outside and doing exercise.
Productivity in Necessity
Essentially I've forced myself into labeling most things I enjoy doing "productive," and everything else "a waste of time." There's no middle ground — except hanging out with friends, which I suppose could be called socio-emotional progress? I feel best when I'm working on some project that I enjoy and I feel is productive. Instead of categorizing my varied interests — music, design, programming, art, etc. — into different levels of productivity, I label it all as "work," and, as a result, most things I do are both fun, and some sort of contribution to the public or myself or someone else.
And even better is feeling productive doing things you have to do — the very reason I'm looking forward to commuting by bike more.
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