I’ve been in this business for about 15 years. Ever since I graduated from university, I started wearing phrases like “I’m so busy,” “I stayed up late finishing a project,” or “I’m stressed from work” as badges of honor.
Talking about marketing to stay "trendy" used to mean discussing big companies, groundbreaking strategies, and complex data analysis, but always under the shadow of overwork.
I’m 38, and that’s how I was raised. If you’re a millennial like me, I’m sure you can relate to the romanticized view of a “productive” person.
This idealization of productivity, so deeply ingrained in our industry, slowly pushes us to take on more responsibilities and tasks, feeding the satisfaction of “staying busy” in an endless rinse-and-repeat cycle of onboarding new clients.
"Productivity" Killed My Productivity
Before I got married, my work life had become the yardstick by which I measured my success or failure, my happiness or sadness, my worth or lack thereof.
Always chasing a new client, crafting a new campaign, selling a new product… And yet, the results were mediocre.
Don’t get me wrong, mediocre results in a world where business failure is an everyday occurrence is no small feat. At least I could put food on the table and action figures on my shelves.
But it’s not something to brag about either. Productivity seemed like the golden path to the paradise of Shark Tanks, where your Instagram profile doubles as an exotic travel agency brochure.Oh, how naive I was.
I don’t know if I’m making myself clear, but one mistake I made early in my career was staying on the hamster wheel of responsibilities just to silence that little voice in my head telling me I should be working.
Partly driven by the need for more income and partly by the guilt instilled by a childhood where “idleness is the mother of all vices” was gospel truth.
Every task I completed, whether well or poorly, at least felt like a sign of progress. After all, if I’m working, I must be doing something right. Right?
I’m not particularly proud to admit it, but it took a year away from my notebooks to realize how much time I had wasted in the bottomless pit of “productivity.”
"Productivity" killed my productivity because I prioritized being busy over maintaining the balance that fosters growth.
I became a master at typing without looking at the keyboard but neglected hours at the gym that could have cleared my mind.I became the Supreme Excel Clerk at the expense of learning to speak another language more fluently.
There wasn’t a blog or report I didn’t read about the latest news in SEO or Facebook Ads, but I missed out on the entire Dune saga and several classics lost to the termite wars of 2015.
I was always “on the move,” but I never truly went anywhere.
So, What Changed?
To be honest, my wife changed me; for the better, thankfully.
Family changed me. Being “productive” is hardly fair to the people you’ve chosen to share your life with.
These past few years, I’ve tried to evaluate things with the clarity that comes from the aches and wisdom of age.
And in that evaluation, I realized that “productivity” was nothing more than “busy work” actions taken just to look busy.
In the world of mediocrity, busy work is enough. You do just enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.
Then came the point where it was no longer possible to live in that “mediocrity.” Simply put, I couldn’t afford it anymore. That was the trigger.
How Did I Escape Mediocrity?
The first thing I did was define my concept of mediocrity. Here’s what I came up with:
Mediocrity is moving without advancing, aging without growing, staying busy with tasks that never stop coming. Essentially, mediocrity is living in the infinite scroll of a Twitter feed.
How does this definition translate to specific situations?
Imagine being busy all the time but stuck in a sort of prison-like status quo. I spent five years of my life being busy, gaining new clients and losing others, earning money and spending it, staying somewhat in shape but never fully shedding “the belly,” reading lots of words that all blurred into repetitive phrases.
After those five years of “productivity,” I was essentially the same person I’d been at the start, just with a bit more back pain.
Defining my situation led me to reevaluate the value of my daily activities.
In this new perspective, work significantly diminished in importance because, during my youth, I had given it undue preeminence.
Don’t get me wrong, I still needed to make a living and attract new clients. Escaping mediocrity meant cutting out the fat from tasks that didn’t add marginal value to my clients and, consequently, occupied my time needlessly.
I restructured my packages, focused on the bottom line, and started seeing my clients sell more with fewer hours dedicated to their accounts. Today, I believe the quality of my service is at least one standard deviation above average.
Cutting the fat and keeping the meat, that’s what’s working for me as I write this. Tomorrow, who knows?
If you can relate to these lines, feel free to share your thoughts. My goal is to connect with other adults and share the specific tips that worked for me—and those that didn’t work at all.
As always, thank you for reading.
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