Do you feel bad about relaxing? Here’s how to counter productivity guilt in everyday life

Why do we expect ourselves to constantly be busy instead of maintaining a work-life balance?

It is a Sunday night like any other, which means that it is filled with copious amounts of doomscrolling while I furtively avoid making eye contact with the deadlines looming over the coming week—until one chunk of black-and-white text gives me pause: “Every Sunday night, I'm filled with the existential anxiety of whether I did my Sunday right and was I the right amount of well-rested while being productive enough to strike off a few things on my old to-do list while trying that one new thing that I've been pushing forward every Sunday while having spent a wholesome amount of time with family and friends while catching up on the books and shows and movies that I missed out on while stepping outdoors at least once while prepping for the week ahead just enough for Monday to not be filled with existential anxiety.”

The tongue-in-cheek post is no different from writer and columnist Nikhil Taneja’s standard acerbic fare but this time around, his words hold up a mirror to the larger cycle of productivity guilt that has our leisure time captive in a vise-like grip. If you find yourself plagued with thoughts about all the items pending on your to-do list the second you put your feet up on the couch: Should I be laying out my clothes for the week? Wasn’t there a yoga class I swore I would join last weekend? Where exactly am I on my eight-glasses-of-water-everyday target?—it might be time to confront this counterintuitive guilt that has been eroding our well-earned rest time.

Why do I feel guilty about relaxing?

As Instagram videos reach ubiquity, so have short, snackily-edited snippets of self-help from armchair motivational speakers who have been feeding us a steady drip of hustle culture. According to most of them, if you aren’t constantly accomplishing something, staying ahead of the curve and pouring every spare second of the day into self-improvement, you aren’t winning at life. The upshot of this constant cacophony of advice is that our to-do lists have turned into the human equivalent of a freight train, threatening to run us at a hundred miles an hour if we don’t manage to clock in enough ticks on an arbitrary checklist.

Life coach Sheetal Shaparia cautions that it is hard to recognise that you are living productivity guilt, until you start feeling consumed by a nagging feeling that you should be doing more beyond your working hours. “Experiencing negative emotions about your life and constantly feeling like you are wasting your time can make for an intrusive and often destructive line of thinking that can cause anxiety, burning you out in the long run. When you are discontent about some facets of your life, the feeling will snowball until you feel generally dissatisfied,” she says.

The key to weeding out this line of thinking then lies in recognising the difference between being busy as opposed to actually being productive. She adds, “Staying busy is frantic action without any concrete result—it is working hard, trying to be perfect and achieving everything without any purpose or target. You can stay busy by doing inconsequential things throughout the day. But being productive means having a purpose and an intent. A productive person doesn’t try to master everything and do it all, rather they choose to do things aligned with their strengths.”

How to break up with hustle culture in everyday life

In a culture that has us primed to squeeze the maximum value out of every second of our day, the notion of taking a pause and doing nothing at all can appear blasphemous. But Shaparia recommends making some crucial changes to stop allowing a misplaced sense of guilt to live rent-free in your mind. For one, she recommends re-evaluating your work-life balance. Assess your life, analyse how much time you spend on work and observe whether it is consuming your life beyond work hours as well. Learning to say no is an essential life skill, and it is important to know how to draw boundaries where needed.

Another important reminder? That comparison really is the thief of joy. The key to a more productive and restful life starts with one essential mindset change—recognising that everyone has unique challenges in life. Stop comparing your measure of productivity against someone else’s because you cannot elevate your life by looking at others.

Redefining your idea of success is also key. Thanks to the impact of hustle culture on our everyday lives, the definition of success is skewed for many people. Success, however, is not just about accomplishing the unimaginable at work. As a generation, we must learn to find value outside of work and prioritise our personal lives as well. And rest, says Shaparia, is revolutionary. Sleeping in or resting might sound contrary to productivity, but experts from around the world are in unanimous agreement that rest can be just as beneficial for boosting your productivity during work hours. Take time off to look around, get some time in the sun, recharge your batteries by connecting with your loved ones and you will notice the change in your headspace.

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