I realized I was wasting my life when I was 27 years old.
I had been setting goals, achieving them, reviewing progress, and setting new goals. But after all this hustle, what did I want to achieve? I didn't know!
A completed to-do list and exhausted journals do not indicate productivity. They indicate that you are busy.
But busy doing what?
I was just living life on autopilot, fulfilling my 9 to 5 obligations. There was no passion, no active enthusiasm to realize my dreams.
My schedule was permanently packed. There was always something to do. I barely had time to breathe, but none of my activities ever took me anywhere.
I was stagnant, stuck. It felt like life was passing by, and I could hardly notice.
“If you don’t have time, the fact is, you don’t have priorities.” -Tim Ferriss.
If you feel the same way, maybe it’s time to take a step back and analyze the losses in your pursuit of productivity. Are you actively working towards your goals, or just filling your schedule with tasks that lack direction?
Here are some signs that you are just busy for the sake of being productive.
You are consuming more than you are creating
For years, my to-do list consisted of items like:
- Watching TEDX talks by bestselling authors
- Completing a thriller writing masterclass
- Reading tutorials on how to self-edit
And so on.
I was consuming content every day, but rarely creating any.
It felt like I was enriching my brain with new ideas. Every lecture series or podcast I completed gave me a hit of dopamine. I kept doing this in a loop until I realized all this accumulated knowledge had no return unless I put it to some use.
I started to consciously consider my content consumption and focus more on creating my own stories. It took some time, but my to-do list…