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Seen quite a lot of reflection during this time that productivity is a capitalist evil. I agree that optimising ourselves for work alone as a measure of value is wrong, but I also want to give a shout out to the positives of particularly self or collectively-governed achievement.
A tool from therapy which I found useful (and some of you may be interested in) was to record your activity for the week and give each activity a mark out of ten for ENJOYMENT value & out of ten for the sense of ACHIEVEMENT it gave you. I found this choice of markers interesting.
For me this helped unlock enjoyment. I began to recognise when I was enjoying myself and made more of a effort to include purely or highly scoring enjoyable activities alongside my already high achievement ratings. It helped to decode and balance out my need to always be working.
For many other members of the group, it moreso helped unlock achievement. They had things they enjoyed in their lives, but didn& #39;t have a sense of purpose, that they were doing something worthwhile. They began to try doing new things, rising beyond what they thought they could do.
We were all there to sort out our poor self image and low self esteem, and interconnected anxiety, depression et al. Investing into both of these ingredients alongside a heap of other factors and tools helped round out our picture of who we were as people, and thus our wellbeing.
My nervousness replacing productivity with enjoyment or rest alone during this time is more people experiencing mental health lows. For me it more becomes about identifying the sense of achievement for yourself, rather than it purely being an external piece from an employer, etc.
It doesn& #39;t have to be through & #39;work& #39;, but in my experience a lot of happiness comes from putting energy into things. A sense of achievement may come in acknowledging what we are already doing right now, where we are putting our energy, where it does good for ourselves and others.
Another may lie in doing small but mighty things to keep ourselves well and happy, investing in our mental & physical health, establishing routine, right up to dreaming beyond limitations, making bold steps to design out what we& #39;ve always wanted to be able to do, if we feel able.
Hopefully this time can teach us more than ever there is no one right way to live; no right way to be well or feel good in ourselves, and that many folks don& #39;t have a choice around how productive they can be. Some would love to be more productive, others to be able to be less.
Anyone interested in the tool mentioned or able to share other resources below just holler as could play a small part in helping people stay well at this time. How we feel about what we do is more important than what others can see or measure, something I& #39;m continuing to explore.
