022: The Dark and Bright Sides of Productivity

Your life is so much more than a to-do list. It can be easy to fall victim to our own thoughts about productivity. Society is eager to share the idea that we need to constantly be producing to be quote-unquote “good”.
In this episode, I explored both the dark side and the bright sides of productivity. I talk about what most people get wrong about what it means to be productive and the process I went through to separate my self-worth from productivity.
You’ll also hear me share a few helpful tips for reframing what productivity means to you!
What you’ll find in this episode:
A segment on what I am currently creating
The confusion that people have about productivity
My process of separating my self-worth and productivity
What the dark side of productivity is
The bright sides of productivity
4 tips for reframing productivity
Read the transcript of the episode below:
Do you ever find yourself rating your days and yourself by how productive you are? This is for you. This is episode 22, the dark and bright sides of productivity.
Welcome to the committed to create podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives.
I am so glad that you're here.
Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 22 and I'm just glad that you're here, here over at my house. I'm at the blue couch. I can never get rid of that couch now. Because I have been imagining all of you coming over and hanging out with me on it and I want it to be here for you. 
So I am excited for today's topic. Before we get started, I wanted to do a segment called currently creating.
So a little while ago, I mentioned on Instagram that I wanted to create a new product that I wish I had. It's a blank lettering notebook with a spiral binding and a hard back so that you can have it on your lap, wherever you go. And so that it's just a little bit easier to keep track of things, take notes.
And I it's just something that I wanted. And so I figured, why not create it? Because maybe some other people are going to want it too. There are other spiral notebooks in the world, but most of them don't have great paper. It bleads through. It's really scratchy for my pens. It ruins and frays my brush pens.
And so I wanted to take our incredible thick, smooth paper and put it into a spiral bound notebook that's blank on one side and has a dot grid on the other side of the paper so that you can practice and doodle and letter. And if you want to use it for journaling or no keeping or planning, Whatever you want to do.
And it's been really fun to create those notebooks and work on them. We are hoping that they will be out very soon. I shared some cover ideas over on Instagram and had you guys vote. One was a cover that says committed to create, which is super fun, cause that's the name of the podcast and it has kind of some brushstrokes and some pretty background.
And then the other one that was a big winner, had a, kind of like an ombre color block with lettering on top that said dream big dreams. And those two got so many votes that I think we're going to be able to create both of them and you can pick or get both. And I'm so excited to be able to offer these notebooks and to just create something that I saw a need for and something that I think everybody will really enjoy.
So be on the lookout for those soon. I will definitely let you know when they are available, especially if you're on our email list. If you are not on it, go do it, go to our website and sign up at the bottom and you'll be able to get those updates and be the first to know so that you can grab them. And that is today's segment of currently creating.
So for today's topic, it's all about productivity, the dark and the bright sides of productivity. And I really wanted to talk about this because if you find yourself kind of addicted to crossing things off on your to-do list or feeling terrible about yourself at the end of the day if you weren't very productive, or if you find yourself just kind of tied to this concept that your productivity really matters in how successful you are as a human, this is what I want to talk about. This is for you. And for me and for all of us. 
For so long. I would gauge my days by how productive I was. I would rate myself by how productive I was. It took me a long time to break up with the concept that my worth and my value came from how much I got done.
I had to learn that my worth is inherent. I was born with it and that it cannot be changed no matter how many things I crossed off on my to-do list, I could not change how important or loved or worthy I was. I really had to spend time kind of detoxing this badge of busy-ness mentality or this idea that being accomplished and super productive and having a lot to show for how I've spent my time was the only way to go. That it was the prize, the thing to work for the thing to base your days on and your worth on.
I'm not going to pretend that that happened overnight. It took a while for me to recognize that I was doing it to really be honest with myself. I don't think any of us want to say, I really tied my self worth to how much I get done in a day. But I think that that's true for probably the majority of us.
We are living in a culture where we are taught that. So why wouldn't we think that we are always taught about how we can get more done better, faster, sooner, and so we can be more successful. And so when we're always taught that going, going, going, and doing, doing, doing is the best way to live the most important way to live and that your productivity equals your success.
Of course, we're going to think that, and we're going to get a little confused thinking that. Getting things done and being productive means that we're a good person that we're worthy and valuable. So as I went through this process of really separating my self-worth away from my productivity and my accomplishments, I found that it really was helpful for me to kind of swing to the other side for a little bit too.
Really not focus on getting things done because I didn't want to continue to get that kind of like drive and high from feeling like I was getting approval from myself and other people because of my productivity. And so I kind of, it was kind of, I don't, I want to say rebellion, but a little bit of like, I don't need to do everything and achieve everything in order to feel worthy and in order to feel good about myself and to love myself and approve myself. I can say that I want love and approval from everyone around me, but in the end, my own love and approval, as cheesy as it sounds really is the most important thing, and the only thing I can control and really the only thing that's worth spending time on, because we can make a difference there. We can't necessarily change, how other people are going to talk to us or think about us. 
And we can also of course change the way that we're thinking and approving of other people. We may be judging them for how much they get done or don't get done. And it's a really powerful concept to learn that our self worth has nothing to do with our achievements or our list of what we've gotten done. So, like I said, as I was kind of going through this process of really identifying how entangled my self-worth and my achievements had kind of become, I did kind of have this rebellious side of me that was like, I don't need to do all these things and I'm not going to, I'm not going to do all this, just to prove that I am important and successful and worth something.
But, I mean, I didn't not do anything. I was still living my life, but I wasn't pushing myself to just overachieve and do things faster than, you know, I used to, or the person next to me. I mean, everybody loves to say only compete with yourself, you know? And I'm like, I don't even want to do that. Like, I don't even want to feel like I need to prove that I'm better than I was yesterday or five minutes ago.
Like, I also need to just accept myself and love myself no matter what. Even if I go up and down and regress and it doesn't matter because I want to love and accept myself no matter what, but I found that as I was productive, it felt really good. And I thought to myself, Why? I have really worked to separate productivity from self-worth, so why does it feel good still to be productive? I had worked so hard to kind of like let go of this idea that busy-ness is importance and in our society, People love to say, oh my gosh, I'm just so busy. And oh, I can't, I'm so busy. And they prize busy-ness and I had really come to prize, not being busy and not needing to prove anything.
And so I was kind of curious and interested when I was productive, why did it feel so good still? Because I believe that the dark side of productivity is when we are pushing ourselves. We're addicted to productivity because of the approval that we're hoping to get from ourselves, from others and from society.
The dark side of productivity is when we are basing all of our worth and our feelings of importance in how much we get done and how productive we are. That is the dark side of productivity. That dark side is when we put a bunch of things on our list and we might get a bunch done, but it's not necessarily things we care about. We're just doing it in order to get lots of things done. And in the process we lose what we actually care about. We don't even know. We aren't even necessarily taking the time to decide if we want to be less productive. If we want to be less busy. If we want to have more white space in our lives, more downtime, more stillness.
I believe that there is this dark side to productivity when we let it push us so far that we go and go and go. We burn ourselves out. We often neglect relationships with ourselves, with our families, with our communities. All of those things are so important, but when we are addicted to productivity, we go into that dark side of it, where we are burnt out.
We forget why we're even doing all of this in the first place. And it doesn't have the effect of lasting happiness because we're seeking this approval, but we don't really get it. We're not truly satisfied from it. And so we keep going. We keep hustling. We keep pushing because it doesn't work. It's the dark side.
It's just, uh, it doesn't fill us up. So as I was feeling good, being productive, I was kind of, I wasn't like anti productivity, but I really wanted to distance myself from that kind of addiction to getting things done. And so I was like, okay, why does it feel good when I DO do something that is productive?
And I realized it's because I'm creating. And that is the bright side of productivity. I believe that we are created to create, to act and not just to be acted upon, which can often look like consuming to create is defined as to bring something into existence, to cause something to happen. So I believe that creation feels amazing because I personally believe that it ties us to our creator, to the creations and nature around us, to each other.
It feels so good to bring something that hasn't existed into existence to use our minds, to use our intellect, to use our creativity. It is what we were designed to do, and it feels so good. So when I started to think about it, I thought when we're being productive, we are creating and I believe that it can be the bright side.
It can be the longterm happiness that we feel from focusing on creating things and not just on checking things off of a list to feel good about ourselves. So the way that I view it is that creating is kind of this bigger umbrella and underneath it there's productivity, because in the definition of productivity, it says that it's measured in terms of output per rate of input.
So you're looking at outcomes. And often for us, this is things that are visual or things that are measurable. And so if you were to say to someone, did you have a productive day? They might say, no, I didn't. All I did was, you know, play with my kids and go for a walk and make dinner. You know, I didn't really get a lot of other things done. But if I look at that and say, okay, you may not have measurable outcomes that you were thinking fall under the umbrella of productive, but what if that was the perfect day? What if that was exactly the day that you wanted to have, because even though you might say, well, I guess it was productive to spend time playing with my kids or to make dinner.
I guess that was productive. There really are certain tasks that our brains kind of have put in our society has kind of put under this section of productivity. And of course you can try to change the things that you believe are productive or not, but either way you want to make sure that you're detaching your worth from it.
Because if you are saying, well, all those things are still productive, so I'm still a good person. I'm still worthy. Then you're still attaching it. That goes to the dark side of productivity. The bright side is when we can detach our worth from it and say that you are focusing on what you want to create.
And I realized that that's why productivity often feels really good for me now, even though I don't base my self worth on it is because it is a part of creating. So now we have a choice in how to reframe. The way that we think about productivity. So I've got four things that I want us to think about when we are reframing productivity and moving to the bright side of productivity.
Number one is remember that no amount of productivity can increase or decrease your worth, your importance or your value. When you look at someone who is sick or unable to quote unquote, get a lot of things done. You don't look at them and say what a useless person, but how often do we say that about ourselves? Man, I'm just so useless right now. I'm not getting anything done. We cannot base our worth on crossing things off on our, to do list. 
Our value has not ever been based on that and will never be based on that. It's just a matter of whether or not we truly believe that and accept that. And I hope that if anything comes out of this podcast for you, that you will take the time to just be aware, aware of the way that you're thinking about productivity and how you might be tying it up in how you feel about yourself. 
Number two is to remember that the reason that productivity feels so good is because we are creating.
So when I think about creating versus being productive, I think about creating in lots of different ways that may not have visual or measurable outcomes that may not align on the list of quote, unquote productive things that we might normally associate with productivity. 
Number three is to ask yourself, are you creating what you want?
This is the thing. It's easy to forget that being productive in and of itself doesn't do anything for us. You could accomplish a hundred tasks in a day, and those could be a hundred things that you don't care about at all. You might feel good about it because you're tying yourself worth up in it and you feel like, well, I got all this stuff done, but what happens when you're spending all of your time trying to fill it with being productive and super efficient. And then at the end of the day, you're not living the life you want to live. So that's all fine and good if we're crossing a million things off the list, except that what happens when those things don't align with our values. And that's what we want to do is take a step back, realize that we live in a society that prizes busy-ness and productivity so much that it's easy to get caught up in it, but to say, what kind of a day do I want to have today?
What do I want to create today? Because often the things that we want to create are not typically related to productivity. And I think that that's okay. I don't think that we need to change that. I think we can say I want some time of stillness. I want to create some stillness today. I want to create some space to think. I want to create some art. I want to create some fun. I want to create just time being together with my kids. I don't have to be productive all the time that isn't the goal. And really pay attention to things that we might be doing because we're on autopilot and we're not thinking about it. And they're things we've always done or is things that our neighbors do, our sisters do, our moms, do our families do, or people around us that we just don't even think about.
We don't question: is that something I really want to be doing? Is that something that I really value? That's really important to me. 
Number four is to reevaluate the to-do list. Now, if you are a list-maker and you kind of addicted a little bit to the list and crossing everything off. You may want to evaluate how you do it either the way that you make the list or how you think about the list or both.
So you may decide that instead of listing 50 things that you want to get done in a day, and I feel like we often overestimate how much we can get done, and then we feel terrible when we don't actually get it done. Instead, you might decide that you want to write down three things every day that are your priorities and that you hope to get done just three or maybe even one, one thing that you would love to get done that day, or if you decide that you want to continue making the longer list, because that works best for you.
Then you can change the way that you think about the list. You can remember that it's okay if you don't get everything on the list done, you can think about what you want to create. Maybe you will make a list of things you want to create. Not only things that you want to get done. 
If we look at our days and instead of just saying, how productive can I be? How much can I get done? But we say, what are the things that I value? Do I value time to rest? Do I value time to do some art? Do I value time to just be with somebody that I love or visit someone or do some service or maybe clean my house? Or that maybe considered those things that would go on the productivity list, but decide what do I want my day to feel like, what are the things that I value and how do I want to fill up my day instead of saying, well, I've got six hours, you know, and while the kids are at school and I think I can, you know, knock out a hundred tasks. 
Instead of doing that, let's look at our days and remember that how much we get done does not determine how good of a person we are. And that we can value the experience that we have more than the things we get done. 
I recently was talking to someone who was struggling with this idea of not crossing things off of her list and that it was really hard for her. And someone suggested that instead of making a to-do list, she could make a done list.
At the end of every day, she could write down all the things she did do and feel really good about that. And I think that that can be a beautiful thing. You just want to make sure that. In that case, you want to make sure that you're still not tying your self worth to your productivity because just because you're making a done list, you could still be saying, okay, look at all the things I did.
I'm still important and successful as a person. You want to really separate that and center yourself worth outside of anything that you do. So, if you wanted to create a done list, but it was going to be evaluating if you met your experience for that day, if you felt like you were really happy with how much time you had to rest and how much time you had to visit with someone and how much time you had to connect or to create a peaceful space in your house, meaning, cleaning up whatever that you wanted to create. If you want to use it as an evaluation tool, that's great, but don't use it as a way to beat yourself up because I can imagine that for a lot of people on their to-do list, they may not write "sit and relax" or "tickle the baby" or "take a nap."
They may not see those things as worthy of being crossed off or worthy of being on their list. And that's why I think it's so valuable to take time to say what is important to me. Is it important for me to find time to rest? Is it important for me to find time, to encourage others or to build friendships? Is it important to me to find time to do some art or some creative practice? 
Of course, you guys all know that I want you to get at least five minutes of mindful creativity every day. And the thing is some of you will say there's just so much to do. I just have so much on my list that I have to do. And I am always going to push back on that.
And you might not like it, but I'm going to push back on that and say, what do you absolutely have to do? We don't actually have to do anything when we take off that pressure that, you know, I should do all these things. Even the things that we think are totally necessary, like, well, I have to drive my kids to school or I have to make dinner.
The truth is that you don't. You really don't and I know it sounds crazy. You don't even have to watch your kids. I mean, some people make these choices. I'm not saying you should, but I'm saying that these things are things that we're choosing to do and you might still choose them, but there might be a lot of things on your list that you're doing out of obligation that you don't have to do.
Maybe it's keeping up. Maybe it's because someone else is doing it, but you don't have to do it. Just because you've always done it that way. Doesn't mean you need to keep doing it that way. So what I want you to ask yourself is what are the experiences that I want to have. What do I want to create today?
When we changed the focus from purely being productive to creating, it changes, at least for me, the way that I think about the creation of my day, the flow of my day, the experience of my day, because I think that the reason often that productivity feels good is because it is a version of creating. Then we can focus on creating.
And we still will have some productivity in there, but it is not the end all be all. And as you're doing this, your mind is your greatest tool. You are going to want to pay attention to what your brain's doing without you paying attention to it. What are those autopilot thoughts that your brain might be having?
Do you ask yourself? Why can't I get anything done? What's wrong with me. Remember, your brain loves to answer questions. So if you ask it a negative question like that, it's often going to give you a negative answer. You might also think things like, man, I was so unproductive today or I'm so useless. Pay attention to what your brain is offering you.
What are the thoughts that it's coming up with? All of those are optional. They have been planted inside of us. These stories that we tell by culture, by the society that we're in. And that is how we have created this narrative of what we need to do in order to be worthwhile. And then we have the opportunity to use our mind this amazing tool to choose some new thoughts that serve us better.
One of those might be my productivity does not determine my worth. Another one might be my life is so much deeper than a to-do list. And another one might be, I create experiences that bring me joy. 
So, I just want you to take some time examine if you might be tying your worth up in your productivity, work on separating that out, and then realize that the reason why productivity can feel really good is because we're creating something. We're bringing something into existence that hasn't existed before. And that is a beautiful thing, but don't forget that a lot of the things that we might want to create are not seen as productive. When we want to create stillness when we want it to create time, to just be those things are not necessarily the things that make it onto our list.
And that's great if you want to start putting them on your list, but we might want to reframe the way that we plan our day and make sure that we're starting with our values. And how we want to take care of ourselves and those around us, and then design our days so that they reflect those values so that we don't just get caught up in being on autopilot and checking things off that we think are worth the approval of society or people around us or even ourselves.
But that's our past selves because we're changing now. And we are having a new belief that we are amazing right now, and that we have time. There is so much time. We have plenty of time and that we can make time, create time for the things that matter to us. So I hope that this is helpful and talking about the dark side and the bright sides of creativity.
Again, that dark side is when we just get addicted to crossing things off, no matter what, and we're tying it to our self-worth. And the bright side is when we are focused on creating and the joy that that brings.
I'm glad that you guys are here. I love sharing these ideas. I talk often with a friend about these things, and then I think I'm going to share this on the podcast with you.
My friend that I wish could be at my house, hanging out with me. But for now, the podcast will do. And I'm just glad that you're here. I love when you share any insights that you have from the podcast over on Instagram or Facebook, and you tag me, I love hearing about it. And of course, leaving a review for the podcast is so incredibly helpful.
I read every single one and they mean so much to me. I hope that you are hanging in there and making some time for yourself to create, if you have not started lettering yet, or you've done some lettering and you want to improve it, we have supplies and tools for you. So if you're just beginning, you're going to come over and get the creative letter in journal bundle.
It will be the first thing you see on our website. If you want to take it up a notch and learn brush lettering, then you'll be interested in the guide to mindful lettering, where I teach you all about brush pens, as well as a bunch of affirmations that you can trace. And the next step is to take it up a notch and do some flourishing and learn how to lay out your quotes and how to add a little bit of embellishment. And I have a guide to flourishing. That's amazing. All of these things. If you get the bundle, they come with a video, they come with a pen, or more, and supplies that you're going to need and love. So go check it out. Hand lettered design.com, or you can link to them in the show notes and they make amazing gifts as well.
So thanks for being here. I love you. And I will talk to you next week.
Links:
Creative Lettering Journal Bundle
Guide to Mindful Lettering
Guide to Flourishing
Ready for a fun activity to feel less stress? Come get our FREE Guide - 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy while it's still available!
I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.
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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!
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