The Shackles of Productivity

I have become a list person. Busy week ahead? You best believe I’m guided by a to-do list. Slow week ahead? Even longer list of all the things I can get done in that time. Task or project facing you? Break it in to individual steps that form the whole. I love creating goals. I love forming resolutions. I love the satisfaction of crossing it off, or even better, making a new list because I demolished the old one. 

And let’s be real. It’s a really good habit. I get a lot done. 

And, it can totally be unhealthy. 

Getting the tasks of day to day life accomplished is a good and noble thing. Spending our time on worthy pursuits, instead of scrolling or watching all day, is healthy and fruitful. 

But the moment I start basing my worth off the to-do list, I have enslaved myself to the rule of productivity. 

The minute I start judging whether it was a “good” day off the end-status of my to-do list, I’ve already lost. After all, did I write on that to-do list, “Love your neighbor?” Or even more practically, how often do I write, “pray today?” Do I really think that running errands and completing random tasks are more important than those? No, but my priorities frequently say otherwise. 

There are also seasons of life where great flexibility, patience, and gentleness are asked of us. There are seasons in which we need to tamper our expectations of ourselves. When we are sick, when we are taking care of a sick loved one, when there are little kids at home, when we have grown older, and the list goes on. Frequently, these seasons are offering us amazing opportunities of virtue and growth. And sure, maybe the checklist stays up on the fridge for a few weeks untouched. But is that a bad thing? 

For me personally, I set a goal at the beginning of this year to write a post on this blog once a month. And I made it. All the way to August, that is. And then, there were other big things going on in life that required that I set that goal aside for the sake of the greater good that was being asked of me. And I really struggled with it! Because I love keeping the shackles of visual, trackable, tangible productivity around my wrists. 

But I am trying to let go. I am trying to focus on the beauty of the simple, mundane, everyday things presented to me. And then when crossing off the big items does come to fruition, I can enjoy it even more heartily. 

At the end of the day, at the end of our lives, Jesus does not care about our to-do lists. He does not care about our productivity. He wants us to do good with our lives, yes. He doesn’t want us to be lazy. But are our attempts at fighting laziness actually distracting us from the bigger, more important jobs we have been given? Are we staying at the superficial level because we are scared to go deeper? Are we distracting ourselves with busy-ness because we are afraid of what will happen if we sit in silence doing nothing? 

Keep making your lists. Please, because I will too. And we are going to get so much done. 

But live in the freedom that you are not defined by what you do in life. You are loved immensely when there are things left undone. And also when everything is done. 

To Him, just being you is enough.