Toxic Productivity

Toxic Productivity - Israa Nasir

Chapter 1: What is Toxic Productivity?

What is Toxic Productivity?

  • Toxic: more harm than good

  • binaries (action A is healthy or action B is toxic)—> false construct

  • Productivity lives on a spectrum

  • Physical impact: lack of sleep, improper diet, lack of socializing

  • Emotional impact: self-doubt, comparison, shame, guilt, low-self-worth, burnout

The Toxic Productivity Mindset:

  • Frozen by indecision

  • Analysis paralysis: desire to be productive is so strong that it gets in the way of being productive

  • Keeps you focused on what you haven’t done instead of what you have done

What fuels toxic productivity?

  • Shame, Perfectionism, Compassion

Where Do Our Beliefs Come From?

  • harmful/unhelpful messages about productivity—> early childhood experiences

  • Core beliefs: general principles—positive, neutral; or negative in nature—that we have adopted about ourselves (internal) and the world (external)

  • Loneliness and being alone are two different things

Healing Begins with Awareness

  • You cannot change what you aren’t aware of

  • Feeling overwhelmed is a normal part of the healing process

  • Healing —> self-awareness, self-reflection, + intentional action

  • Healing —> curiosity to look inward, + courage to change

  • Ask yourself: what might happiness look like for you, in the absence of being productive?

Chapter 2: How Does Toxic Productivity Show Up in Your Life?

Toxic Productivity and Your Values

  • habits done for belonging, validation, acceptance —> toxic

  • Toxic habits —> not to get things done, but to cope with uncomfortable feelings about our worth

  • Ask yourself: “If you had to focus on accomplishing the things that make you feel good, what would those things be?”

  • Be driven by purpose (personal values) NOT timelines + milestones

Why Do We Do Instead of Just Be?

Action Bias - In situations where we feel stuck, our brain favors doing SOMETHING, even something unhelpful, because when a problem presents itself, doing nothing is too uncomfortable

  • Action bias can be a good thing (journaling to combat overthinking)

  • Can be just as bad as analysis paralysis (trapping you in a loop of action that has no result)

  • Paradox: Inaction —> secret ingredient —> healthy productivity

Myths that Perpetuate Toxic Productivity

Myth #1 - Everything matters equally:

Reality: Different tasks have different priorities

Myth #2 - Multitasking helps us get more things done

Reality: Mono-tasking > Task-switching

Myth #3 - Working longer hours means getting more done

Reality: Short, concentrated bursts of effort (ultradian cycle ) > hours and hours of work

Myth #4 - In order to be productive i need to wake up early, earlier than everyone else

Reality: Work with your biology, not against it. Setting a consistent, high quality sleep schedule is better than just waking up super early to be “productive”.

Avoiding Autopilot:

  • Our routines can cause us to operate on autopilot, and the pressure to continue with what we know inhibits the brain’s ability to think or adapt unfamiliar situations

Chapter 3: The Many Masks of Productivity

Mask #1 - Self-Care

Signs:

• Rigid, restrictive routines.

• Skipping self-care leads to feelings of shame or failure.

• Focused on achieving an imagined “ideal self” with high standards.

Antidote: Practice self-care that nourishes and genuinely makes you feel better.

Mask #2 - Personal Development

Reframe Your Thinking:

• Instead of: “I’m not good enough if I don’t have __ skill.”

• Think: “Having skill will make it easier to show up the way I want to in area of my life.”

• Focus on growth with self-acceptance.

Mask #3 - Chronic Busyness

• There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to make the most of your time.

• However, reflect on these questions: Who really benefits from my busyness? s the benefit worth the personal cost? Is the feeling of being needed worth the exhaustion that builds over time?

• Toxic productivity focuses on quantity over quality—don’t sacrifice meaningfulness.

Mask #4 - Emotional Needs

  • Prioritize emotionally safe and healthy relationships.

  • The more meaningful your emotional connections, the less you will rely on toxic productivity to meet unmet emotional needs.

Chapter 4: Using Productivity as Self-Worth

Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself in the moment—your sense of confidence and self-respect.

Self-worth is your inherent value as a person, independent of achievements or external opinions. It's the belief that you deserve love and respect simply because you exist.

Signs of low self-worth

  • Self-doubt (Am I good enough?)

  • People-pleasing (Are they happy with me?)

  • Indecisiveness (I can’t make the right decisions)

  • Productivity dysmorphia (I have not done enough)

  • Imposter syndrome (They’ll find out I’m not really good at this/for them)

  • Perfectionism (I can’t make mistakes)

  • Self-betrayal (It doesn’t matter what I want, what matters is what I should do)

Your Core Beliefs and You

  • Core beliefs- general principles about our internal (me) and external (them) world

  • Confirmation bias: core beliefs get reinforced as the mind looks for evidence to support it and filters out any evidence against it

  • Negativity bias: our brain holds on to, focuses and remembers things that are negative (evolutionary mechanism to protect us from repeating the same mistake)

Example:

  • You have a core belief that says “I am not good at anything”

  • If you get a promotion at work, your brain will do anything to support that core belief, creating automatic and subconscious thoughts like “I just got lucky, they probably made a mistake, they just need someone to fill the role.”

  • The brain is determined to keep you safe from emotional danger as well as physical danger

Unlearning Old Core Beliefs to Make Space for New Ones

  • Anything learned can be unlearned

Your Self-Worth is Not Conditional

  • Healthy self-worth: inherent value —> independent of external factors —> rooted and grounded

  • Unhealthy self-worth: inherent value —> dependent/conditional on external factors —> fluctuating with every life event, shame

  • Remedy: Attach yourself to something bigger within you (qualities, characteristics, traits) instead of factors outside of you

  • In other words: “Even if I lose X, I am still a good person” or “Even if X person leaves, I am still a good friend”

Rebuilding Self-Worth Outside of Productivity

  • Have accountability for your mistakes, but do not shame yourself or put yourself down

    • Original thought: I am bad

    • Mindset shift: I did a bad thing

  • Recognize failure as an event, instead of a personality trait

    • Original thought: I am a failure

    • Mindset shift: I tried something and it failed

  • Detach material worth from your personality

    • Original thought: Having nice things makes me better

    • Mindset shift: I have nice things

  • Look at yourself as a whole person, knowing that there are parts of you that are amazing and parts of you that need to improve

    • Original thought: I am always right

    • Mindset shift: I am sometimes wrong and sometimes right

  • Avoid comparisons to others; instead, be inspired by them

    • Original thought: They have a better relationship than us

    • Mindset shift: How can I improve my relationship so I feel good about it?

  • Trust yourself while also seeking other people’s opinions on your decisions

    • Original thought: I need you to help me decide

    • Mindset Shift: This is what I decided, what do you think?

Redefining Self-Worth

  • Journey, not a destination (constant work-in progress)

  • Healing is NOT linear!

Chapter 5: Managing Unresolved Shame

The Connection Between Shame and Toxic Productivity

  • Shame: self-conscious emotion (focus is on you) —> embarrassment, sadness

  • Not being good enough —> leading to you doing everything you can to fit in

  • Productivity habits —> sense of belonging

  • Shame —> leads to avoidance

Common Avoidance Strategies:

  • Procrastinating

  • Numbing

  • Overthinking/over-preparing

Does Shame Make You More Productive?

  • Motivation through shame —> short-lived, unhealthy, unpleasant

  • Shame —> something is inherently wrong with YOU, not the behavior or situation

  • Shame-based motivation —> low self-worth

Where Does Productivity Shame Come From?

  • Wanted Identity: How we want others to perceive us

  • Unwanted Identity: How we don’t want others to perceive us

  • Wanted identity can create unwanted identity, and vice versa

Taking Your Shame from Judgement to Curiosity

  • Shame does sometimes draw on valid critiques

  • We all have unhelpful habits, we are only human

  • The problem: valid critique of something you’ve done —> judgement of who you are as a person

  • Transform judgment —> curiosity

Reclaim Your Identity from Shame

  • Rephrase black-and-white beliefs about yourself into open-ended questions

  • Refrain from overgeneralizing about yourself

  • Do not believe everything you think about yourself