My Toxic Relationship With Productivity

Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. This is going to be a bit of a chitchat ramli video where I talk about my feelings with a cup of chamomile tea. So if you want to gravity we can have a bit of a chat and I want to talk about my toxic relationship with productivity. This is something I very recently realized and it was it was a real shock to me as well as I'm sure it is for you guys watching this if you've kind of been following the channel for any length of time the way it happened was a few weeks ago. I started feeling like I was in this like real kind of productivity slump.

Type in that when it came to like filming videos for a period of about three weeks every time I filmed a video I just sort of I didn't really couldn't be bothered to I'm just like our do I really have to film this video? But because I have like, you know hammered the Mantra into my heart that consistency is like the most important thing in life and this fear when you're a YouTuber that all YouTubers have that, you know, I can't possibly take a break from YouTube because if I do then the algorithm is going to be mean to me and everyone's going to stop following..

Channel and then my career is going to go downhill and then I'm going to have to have to end up being a doctor again that thought process was on steroids basically for this period of three weeks and every time I filmed a video it was like a real. Yeah, it was like an uphill battle every time and the way I usually approach this stuff. It's that like, you know, not everything has to be fun 100% of the time there are times where we do have to push through and do stuff but generally the secret to my productivity for the last I don't know 15 years of my life has been that everything I do. I'm broadly enjoy and like 90% of it is.

I enjoy and maybe if I have to push through the final 10% or usually the first ten percent in terms of getting started. That's just a bit that takes a bit of pushing. But in this in this period of 3 weeks it was like every aspect of these videos needed that that that like, you know uphill push and it really wasn't a nice feeling to do something that I was actively not enjoying but doing it because I felt like I had to because of the algorithm for example, and then on top of not really enjoying filming videos anymore, which is unusual for me. I also had this like in the mornings I would often have like a call a phone call or like an art lesson or a workout..

Scheduled at like 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning and I just sort of wake up bleary-eyed. You know, I'd set my alarm for 8:30 and then I kind of sleep again and then like three minutes before the call I'd wake up. I'd hop on the call. I'd like, you know pretend to be bright and alert and like awake and stuff. But I had this like seething resentment inside of me that why do I have to you know, it's weird in a way because it's not like anyone was forcing me to do this. Like I am completely in control of my own schedule and I had chosen to book in art lessons and workouts and these phone calls and chat about my book and.

Team meetings all the stuff in the mornings thinking, you know, a few weeks prior that oh, this will be good. This will get me out of bed. And then when it came to that it was this feeling of like like hating my former self for booking in these things in the morning. And again, that's that's unusual because I've like never really had that feeling before and then after a few days of this I also do that thing which apparently there's a word for it. It's called Revenge bedtime procrastination where where this thing that we have where you're like, you know, it's past your bedtime, but your you don't want to go to bed and you just like.

Need to procrastinate and so I was like spending tons of time to scrolling through Instagram and Twitter just for absolutely no reason until 1 o'clock 2 o'clock. Sometimes even three o'clock in the morning and later my house. Make sure you told me that this is called Revenge bedtime procrastination where which is a phenomenon whereby you feel like you don't have control over the rest of your day. And so the only bit of your day that you do have control over is a nighttime. That's when your brain suddenly decide. You know, I'm the boss. I'm not going to go to bed and you end up screwing yourself for the next day and then the final piece of the quartet as it were was this like everyday I would have this.

Chronic feeling of dissatisfaction at the end of the day being like Oh, I didn't do enough today. I woke up too late, or I'd let you know that that meeting wasn't productive enough or I only filmed one video when I should have film three videos and I should have shot a thumbnails and I should have done for videos for my course, but I ended up only doing one thing and I'm not really a stranger to this feeling of dissatisfaction like this is often how I feel, but it's like I don't like it's rare for me to feel it like sort of multiple days in a row and there was a period of like two or three weeks where it was just sort of sort of stacking up. I sort of feel like that time..

Passed in a bit of a haze in the I don't really remember what happened. Like what I actually did in those days. Like I look back on my calendar from like, you know a few weeks ago in that in that period of three weeks. I'm just think damn. I just don't remember any of this at a don't really remember it happening and that is also a little bit of a scary feeling and so all of this stuff maybe it's burnout. I've never I've never really experienced burn out before I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but maybe that's what that feeling is like where you feel like you just can't be bothered to do anything and like the work that you're having to doing is like a real a real struggle. Maybe that's what burner is..

Is but I was like psychoanalyzing myself earlier. I came up with a few different reasons as to why this was happening. And then once I've discovered the reasons behind why it was happening. I found some solutions to it. So let's talk about those and the biggest reason is outcome dependence. Like I was fixated to certain like outcomes that were outside of my control. Now, this is normally something that I very much rail against I don't believe in setting output goals IE. I don't believe in like if I make a video I.

Believe in the concept of having a kind of view counts like oh, I really want this video to hit this many views or I really want to hit this many subscribers because that's just dumb because that stuff is outside of my control in almost every aspect of my life. I set input goals instead. Like I'm just going to make two videos a week and because that's entirely within my control and my team's control but a few weeks ago. I think it was like run about the start of January January 2021. We drop down from three videos a week to two videos a week and because of that drop down I was thinking Okay cool. So now we're doing fewer videos there for all of these videos..

To be absolute bangers and I kind of had that in my mind that I want every video to be a banger and on YouTube when you want every video to be a banger like there that there is only so far that particular thought process can go because maybe you get a bang when you're lucky and then maybe you get another bag when you're lucky and then you get a video as YouTube Studio shows you which is like 10 out of 10 on the analytics 10 out of 10 meaning that in your previous ten videos. It's the tenth worst performer. And so that's a real feeling of like, oh my God and basically every YouTuber ever spoken to has this feeling when they see.

see a 10 out of 10 on YouTube Studio being like Oh my God. My life is over. Like what's the point? My YouTube channel is going down the drain. I think it was because for some reason I set this intention in my head that hey I want to make Banger videos every time and that intention made me fixated on the outcome of the video. Like how well is the video performing? So then I was becoming like obsessed with the YouTube analytics and thinking oh my God, this video is only got a thumbnail click-through rate of like 9.8% We need to get it up to 13% Let's change the thumbnails as go and shoot load of thumbnails and essentially this Loop of trying to optimize the numbers whereas for the last like.

Three and a half years on YouTube. I have broadly not really cared about the numbers. Like I couldn't care less once a video comes out how it performs. Generally I try and try and operate like that. And so that outcome dependence on the YouTube channel was one thing and then like alongside. I had a lot of outcome dependence on sort of writing the book that I'm working on and actually had this book here by our draft number for John McPhee on the writing process, which is helping me learn how to write but I'll put a little video up there that talks about how I feel I've wasted the last six months of my life in terms of writing the book and that stuff..

What's happening around the same time? Whereby, you know, just for a bit of background. I've got a book deal and I'm writing a book. They're sort of two goals that I could have when writing the book one of them is I want to write the best book I can and I want to write something I'm proud of which is very much an input goal which is very much up my street and the sort of girl that I normally have but then there's the external goal, which is that I really want this book to hit the New York Times bestseller list and it's such a dumb stupid arbitrary goal to have because it's completely outside of my control and it's just it's just stupid, but for some reason I kind of fixated on that as a goal that I.

To reach for and so when I was writing the book anytime, I'd write something I'd be thinking. Oh my God, this is total junk. This is not very good. And I sort of be hating myself as I was trying to write knowing that my work wasn't very good at all and really overall that entire problem was just around setting outcome goals rather than input goals the second cause of this kind of toxic relationship with productivity that I discovered is that I often do this as like, I don't pay enough attention to my emotional state and what I mean by that is that often if I don't feel like doing something I will do it anyway..

Way and like push through the pain and like, you know, I'm gonna do it. Anyway, especially when it comes to making videos like, you know, I think we put out like 350 videos or something on this channel so far. It's been on average two point something videos a week since June of 2017 and to get to that level of consistency while hopefully keeping the quality up to get them to get to that level of consistency. It's not like every time I sit down to film a video I'm like, oh, I'm really looking forward to filming this video. In fact for the most part. I have to kind of force myself to get started and then once I get started with.

Meaning it's actually quite fun because I love the sound of my own voice and it's quite fun talking to a camera in a way, but I think there's a there's a sweet spot when it comes to this this thing. Like if if you're a complete waste man and you spend your entire life playing playing World of Warcraft. For example more on that later. If you complete waste man, then there is a level at which you have to tell yourself. I am going to do something even if I don't feel like it I'm gonna get off the sofa get off my chair playing World of Warcraft and I'm gonna go for a run. Even if I don't feel like it I'm going to study for my exams. Even if I don't feel like it I'm gonna.

Ignore my emotional state which wants me to just sit and play World of Warcraft. And I'm going to do the thing that is better for my long-term long-term future. I'm going to do the hard thing that I know I should do and that like if you're a total waste man, it makes sense that to you know often you should disregard your emotional state because it's not it's actively not serving you but I think given that I'm Brody not always mad. I think I probably swing too far in the opposite direction and I have a lot of friends who I'm sort of traditionally High Achievers who are also in this boat, whereby we will often do things..

Whether or not we feel like it because we know it's there a good thing to do. But just sort of take that to the point of extremism almost where even if I've had like, you know, I'm in a bit of a slump in my emotional state is a bit like a I'm not really feeling inspired to write or not really feeling inspired to make a video how think you know, what no, you have to be a professional and actually we've got a video coming out later this week or next week about overcoming procrastination that is all about like tackling this thing of the resistance that we have, but I think a big part of at least for me this kind of verge of burning.

Doubt if we want to call it burn out a big part of this was just ignoring my emotional state and pushing through and doing stuff regard like even even though I wasn't feeling feeling like it and obviously like, you know, these are these are like two extremes and there is some kind of Sweet Spot which I'm trying to get closer to which is something along the lines that yes, there are some occasions in which we do have to force ourselves to do stuff but it's also okay to take a break. This is a very roundabout way of saying it's okay to take a break sometimes and if I am feeling like, you know, I don't feel like filming a video this.

Even if there's a sponsored video deadline coming up I could just emailed sponsor and be like, hey guys wasn't really feeling it wasn't inspired. Can we delay this video by a few days and the normally like the so nice they were like, yeah. Sure take your time do whatever you want. Basically. It's okay to take a break, but I think I had in my head that I had to be productive at all at all times regardless of how I was feeling and that I think contributed to this weird relationship that I have with productivity and thirdly I think a big contributor which is the fact that my calendar was way too busy a few I think a couple of months ago I discovered calendly this.

App that lets you like send a link to someone and they can book A Time on your calendar. And so any time people would email me like I get sort of hundreds of emails each day and often there are some very interesting opportunities people running start up. So people doing interesting YouTuber start type things or creative things are just wanting to have a chat and there was a period of a few weeks where I was very trigger-happy with my calendar link. I would just be like if someone would be like, hey, can I pick your brain about X I'd be like, you know what this might be fun. Sure. Here's a calendar link book A Time wherever you want and I'll rock up on his own call or if someone would email be like, hey, I'm running the startup and I love to get your thoughts on..

Something and maybe you can help marketing. May I sure the book A Time on the calendar and I ended up with like a ridiculously packed calendar where like every half an hour from like 9:30 in the morning until like 6:00 p.m. Some days. I would just have a different Zoom call and this would be sort of amongst the live sessions of my part-time YouTuber Academy, which has been running for the last six weeks. It would be a long side coaching sessions and workouts and art lessons and there was so many days where I was like having lunch on a zoom call being like look. I'm really sorry..

I've been in back-to-back Zoom calls for the last five hours. I'm going to stay in back-to-back some calls for the next six hours can do you mind if I eat from the zoom call my housemate shave it off and be like like why the hell don't you take a break to eat dinner? Like what's the point of you being on a zoom call? Is that our really going to make a difference? But because I'd been so trigger-happy with my calendar link. I felt bad and canceling on these people and it just had a ridiculously packed calendar, which is again just as I feel the feels very first we'll probably but I think given that like book writing and youtubing and stuff most of the stuff I do on the Internet is.

Quite a creative art I've realized that I probably do need a lot of time blocked out to actually make a video and to actually write something because in my head I was thinking well, you know, if the videos 20 minutes long, it should only take half an hour to film because you know, I'm a professional I've been doing this for years and so I can set the camera up. I'm eliminated friction in my life. I can film in half an hour and I just didn't take account of the fact that I am a waste matter sometimes when it comes to this stuff and often it like it takes me three hours to get into the mood to then film a video..

Video, I just didn't really come that. I sort of assumed that I was better at this productivity thing that I actually was and that meant that I overlooked my calendar sort of I basically had no margin built into my my schedule margin being sort of gaps like empty gaps where you can just sit down and think or if something runs over overruns, then you can you can fit in the gap or if you want to have lunch you need to get actually have a gap for that. And so and so all of these different things I think were what contributed to this overall feeling.

Of like, you know, I see be a I can't be bothered to do any of this this YouTube stuff can be bothered with a Birkin still much effort are the goal is to hard is never going to happen. I'm a terrible writer. I'm a terrible YouTuber people are going to follow me blah blah, but thankfully in the last couple of weeks. This has improved because having figured out what the problems were. I've now sort of actively started to address those problems. So firstly I have made it a point to not set output goals outcome goals rather and so even though in the back of my mind, I do really want this book to be a New York Times bestseller. That's any time I have.

That thought I try and squash it away and think instead know if I had to choose between that and writing a book and proud of and that I liked I would definitely choose writing a book that I'm proud of and that I like and even for videos like this on YouTube like you might have noticed past few weeks. I've been doing more of these sit down and have a chat with a cup of tea type videos. I really like doing these videos because I can just sort of speak from the heart. I can talk about my feelings. It feels like the camera is in a way of sort of therapist and it's always nice reading the comments and I actually prefer doing the sort of sit down chatty videos then a.

Very well produced here are the 18 ways to be productive type video which takes a lot of a lot of actual effort to put together and a lot of like mental effort to you know, bring myself to sit down and make which is why partly I've been doing more of these videos and what I'm telling myself is I actually don't really care how these perform if people want to watch them to watch them. If they don't they don't people will find something to do with their time regardless. I don't need to be fixated on what that number is telling me on YouTube Studio on the YouTube analytics. Secondly, I now have a much empty a calendar, which is great. I have modified my calendar links and I have now.

My assistant Elizabeth who has her own YouTube channel link below Elizabeth keep on the keeps on telling me like why the hell are you saying yes to so many people because I feel like I'm a I'm a chronic nice guy in that if someone emails me or message me or especially if like a friend introduced me to someone else who they know and they asked for a meeting. I'll often just say yes to it and it was this thing of saying yes to too many things and booking them in the calendar way, too often that meant the calendar was overloaded. So now I've changed my calendar link so like no one is allowed to book meetings with me before two o'clock in the afternoon..

It gives me the whole morning basically free to do creative stuff and then an hour for lunch and then I can have calls from like two till like 6:00 p.m. But I'm only allowed to have like two or three calls each day. And so it's like a system solution to a people problem. My people problem is that I'm too Keen to say yes to things but now the link doesn't the link itself does not let me over booked myself. And so if you've been emailing me the last couple of weeks and you haven't had a response or haven't ya got a meeting arranged with me apologies, but it had to be done I would just.

Trying to say yes to too many things. It's weird because like when you start off doing stuff on the internet, you think like any time you go to comment any time you get an email you're like, oh my God, someone's like watching my stuff. Someone wants to talk to me. Hell yes. I'll give you like an hour of my time. But then as you become more more more famous than you start getting way too much inbound and there there are literally not enough hours in the day to actually be able to say yes to all the things you want to say. Yes to any end and even if there were it wouldn't make sense to use up kind of 18 hours of my working day to just have meetings with people..

Because the reason people follow me in the first place is because I make the time to make videos and without that like mt blocks of time in my calendar. I don't think I would be serving my long-term interest or overall the long-term interest of my audience which feels a bit grandiose. But oh well thirdly I have found that I've tried I'm trying to become a bit more aware of what my emotional state is at any given moment. I spoken to a few friends who are sort of like me. I eat weird productivity nerds and they've said that getting a therapist has really really helped because even though they don't have mental health issues per se..

It's still helpful to be able to speak to someone that just encourages you and in a way forces you to actually address what your emotional state is around stuff. And so I'm trying to get more okay with ask myself. How do I Lena? How do I feel right now? And you know therefore do I really want to do this thing that I know I should do or should I just kind of given to my feelings but not viewing that as a bad thing. So still a work in progress. I wasn't really feeling like filming this video right now, but my housemate talked me into doing it and I'm kind of glad I'm doing it now because it's like most of these things like most of the friction most of.

Activation energy is just in getting started and once you get started, it's actually quite fun fourthly. I've actually resumed playing World of Warcraft. I'm actually doing a 30 day challenge where I play I play video games for 30 days. So I won't say too much about that. But I've been streaming basically every day on Twitch. If you want to follow me on Twitch TV, / alien doll that's been fun. And finally the thing that I've realized that I really should get better at doing is that basically at the end of the day I can just choose to be satisfied with what I've done. There's a great blog post. I read a friend to Neel Nanda who featured on our podcast.

once I put I'll put a link to the video below. He's going great blog post that talks about this just that as productivity type people like we always think you know you wake up in the morning thinking. Oh, I didn't get enough sleep and then, you know, you get back from work or from school or whatever and think I didn't I didn't perform well enough at work and then you do your side hustle. You're like, oh I could have been more productive in the side hustle. If you have a family or like a goddamn it wasn't present enough with my kids or my housemate and all that kind of crap. And then at the end of the day you go to bed thinking. Oh my god. I've gone to bed too late and I'm going to get enough sleep and then the whole cycle is going to continue and a real big part of it is just in choosing to be satisfied with the.

So what I realized I can do is at the end of the day I could just think to myself. You know, what today's been a good day of work. I could think that or I could be myself up. I could think oh my god. I've been so unproductive today. What is life? I'm such a waste man, but I either way it doesn't change the fact that I've done a certain amount of work. I filmed one video. I shot a thumbnail. I did a thing for my YouTuber Academy the story. I tell myself about it after the fact does not change the actual reality. All it does is make me feel bad about myself when I'm when I tell myself I'm a waste man and it's 10 p.m. But I haven't done enough work for the day. Therefore I should be doing something productive rather..

Than I did it playing World of Warcraft or something. So what I'm trying to do is trying to tell myself that it's okay to choose to be satisfied with what I've done at the end of the day because ultimately it doesn't really change anything. All it does is make me feel better about my life and then I can play what a Warcraft while streaming on Twitch and do it guilt free rather than hating myself every step of the way as I level up my protection Paladin. And so that is my toxic relationship with productivity. It's still a work in progress. It's been a while since I've been in a relationship with anyone or anything so it's kind of its kind of novel in a way, but it's not the sort..

A relationship with productivity that I would like and I'm you know, she and I are working together to improve things. If you got to this point in the video, I'd love for you to leave a clover Emoji in the comments. I'm always very curious to see how many people reach the end of this video If you haven't subscribe to the channel you definitely should and if you enjoyed this sort of video, we'll put a little playlist over here with more chitchat rambley type videos over a cup of tea if you're into that sort of thing. Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate you guys so much for watching these videos because it's genuinely nice having like a people who have my back and as like a therapist on.

Murrah so thanks for that. You have any tips on how to solve this problem? Let me know. But otherwise click the links over there and we'll see you in the next video. Good night..