The vicious cycle of extreme productivity

Good and bad multitasking is a subject we review quite often. Usually, the focus is on how to multitask correctly. Recently I became aware of the people who take the right multitasking to its limits and beyond. For additional reading I selected here, here, here, here, and here.

The perfect schedule

There is such a this as “the perfect schedule”, and I know many people who know everything about productivity. A typical day of a person addicted to productivity looks approximately like this:

• Prioritize full time job. Work 100% of the time. Multitasking for coffee, and social media when waiting for computer or other people.
• Learn new things every evening and Saturdays. Acquire a new skill every 3 months. Practice 3 different skills at all times.
• Sleep 6 hours during the night and a couple of power naps on weekends.
• Pomodoro breaks 5 min for every 30 min, doing house chores.
• Sunday is a good time for some sport, maybe hiking. Think about life during the workout.
• Commuting is perfect for audiobooks.
• Eating and drinking is the best time for socialization.

Formally such a schedule is impeccable. It includes all basic body and spiritual needs, work and personal growth. All multitasking is correctly placed, no time wasted. From observing people with such a schedule, this perfect schedule guarantees two burnouts per year.

Chasing tasks

Why do we put so many tasks in our schedule? Productivity can be addicting. As we complete task after task, the brain generates dopamine. This feels like a video game, only stronger. What will we prioritize out of the schedule? The job is the most important part of who we are. Learning new things makes us feel better and fuels career growth. We do need to keep our body in working conditions. And there is friends and family who we love deeply. All tasks fit quite well, and there is a feeling of accomplishment. A long summer vacation makes sure we can ventilate. What can go wrong?

Rest

There is the basic need to rest. As we work more, we become less effective and our performance drops. Typically the people who work hard also party hard. We watch TV while chatting in WhatsApp while cooking or shopping via the internet. Social events include talking and drinking while dancing or eating. This means stress and multitasking even while resting. Otherwise, we will probably get bored.

Occasionally things can and do go wrong, add all the things we cannot predict: super-urgent projects at work, sickness, home emergencies, party or another social opportunity. If the schedule is full, we do not have any possibility to add emergencies without eliminating the little rest we do have.

The only time the stress can go down is basically the only time we do sports. Sports may have different effects on stress. Exercise and other physical activity produce endorphins and also improve the ability to sleep, which in turn reduces stress. Basically, this means that the stress level rises uncontrollably till the weekend and then falls sharply on Sundays.

Stress

We start with a high base level of stress that is generated by a tight schedule. The stress is vented on Sundays, which is marginally OK.

The stress itself may generate negative feelings. As we do more and more, we also occasionally mess up.

When we mess up we generate devastating psychological patterns: we obsessively replay the traumatic event in our head, experience unresolved guilt for something we could have done differently, complain ineffectively about our troubles to our friends who are busy with their own issues, overanalyze failures, and generally worry about things.

This stress sucks our mental resources, reducing the self-esteem and causing a huge cognitive distraction.

Self-esteem

Our self-esteem is by default based on what we achieve and what we own. As a result, we work harder to earn money and buy things, learn harder to get promoted and learn still more to feel that there is more about us than just work.

The harder we work, the worse we feel. So we eat better, do more sports, and have more fun.

Occasionally we fail and obsess about it. Quite often we succeed and feel like superstars. To succeed in a different task we get into the “flow” state, which is highly addictive. Each time we emerge from the “flow” state, we feel dissatisfied and need to party hard to generate the sufficient arousal.

New habits

Being stressed we tend to take fewer risks and fall back to old habits quite often. This means the harder we work, the less likely we are to make a big positive change in our life. At the same time, we feel a stronger need for big changes as a way to break the tough schedule and achieve something worthwhile. We do learn new habits but pay dearly for it in terms of effort and stress.

Superstardom

Each person who can live such a schedule is basically a superstar and suffers from the same problems. One of these problems is a very high burnout rate. The magic circle that powers the highly dynamic schedule makes us work ever harder to keep producing results. The only ways we let go of our goals is a long vacation or a sickness leave. There is also a high danger of substance abuse, countered by the strong self-discipline required to keep such a schedule.

Remedy

The only real remedy I know is prioritizing tasks and doing less.

To some extent, mindfulness and meditation can increase the self-esteem and reduce stress independently of our achievements.

Procrastination from time to time may be a better way of resting than partying hard.

Unfortunately, the hardest effect of extreme productivity is on our ability to learn new things.

Maybe it is best to use some of the vacations we do have for focused learning and focused projects.