I’ve had too many days to count that have been flattened by productivity guilt. If our days have become crowded containers for what we did or did not do, perhaps we do not need to pursue more ways to be productive, but rather shake up the contents.

Instead of being alive to the variances of what is done in a day-sometimes a little, sometimes a lot-we spiral in a slew of ‘if onlys’: if only I were more productive, if only I were more efficient, if only I were better, if only I were more like that person … then I could do it right, do enough, be enough. With this pile of undone things often comes an undercurrent of guilt, anxiety or shame. There’s the laundry thing, the catch-up thing, the replying to a text thing, the grocery shopping thing, the cooking thing, the cleaning thing, the creative thing, the exercise thing, the work thing, the medical thing, the thing we ought to do, the thing we don’t want to do, the thing we’ve put off despite it being the one important thing. We can always do more, and there is always more to do.

When we conflate productivity with worthiness, what we do is never enough.

(Photography credit Giulia Giannini McGauran.) Join Madeleine on her CreativeMornings FieldTrip on Navigating Productivity Guilt on February 15! This is an edited extract from Madeleine Dore’s new book I Didn’t Do the Thing Today.

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