You Don’t Need To Be Productive Every Second To Succeed. Promise.
Photo by Zachary Keimig on Unsplash
Can I let you in on a little secret? I kinda hate the fact that I call myself a “productivity coach”.
Why?
Because every time I use that term, I feel like I have to explain that I’m not like those “productivity bros” you often hear talking about waking up at dawn, running 5 miles, drinking a green smoothie, meditating, working their 9 to 5, then putting in the 5-9 side hustle shift, etc.
Those guys (and, let’s be real, they’re always guys) who believe they can “work a whole day before noon” getting multiple work days into a single day?
Those guys who have bought into the capitalist idea that more is always better?
That’s NOT what I’m about. And it’s not what I do.
In fact, I reject “hustle culture” wholeheartedly.
(Honestly, just writing “hustle culture” makes me cringe.)
I don’t think the point of life is to do as much as you can as fast as you can, or to “make every moment count”, to be better, faster, or more than everyone else.
That sounds really unpleasant, in fact.
Instead, my goal is to help you to learn to use your time in a way that makes you feel good. Every day.
That supports your goals and values.
That feels aligned with who you are.
That includes downtime (not to make you even more productive, but because rest should be a right)
My goal is to help you learn to prioritize by making the right tradeoffs.
Because there will always be tradeoffs.
I want to teach you to feel good about what you did and also feel ok about what you didn’t. Because you know that the things you did were more important than the things you didn’t do.
I want you to have agency with your time. To be in the driver’s seat. To make your own decisions.
I want to help you move from reactive, ping-ponging from fire to fire all day long, to proactive, where you make realistic plans you can actually accomplish in the time you have available.
Look, your life is made up of days. Individual days.
And my goal is to help you feel good about your time, to heal your relationship with time, one day at a time.
Because if you improve the quality of your days, you improve the quality of your life.
No one looks back from their deathbed and says “Wow, I wish I’d shoved more productivity into my days”.
But you might look back and regret not spending more time on things you enjoyed, or with the people you love, or the fact that you were so stressed out so much of the time.
So the next time you hear one of those productivity bros talking about how he planned out his day in 15-minute increments and hasn’t missed a day at the gym in years, I want you to consider whether that’s actually desirable for you.
Or if what you’d prefer is to be able to make time for the things that matter to you, that you have to do and that you want to do, without the stress.
Because that’s what I want to help you do.
So, I’m thinking about a new title, one that requires a little less explanation and juxtaposition.
What about “time satisfaction coach”?
Give me your honest thoughts!
