My personal myth of productivity
A full two years after I started freelancing I started seriously giving some thought to the way I think about my productivity and working hours.
I won’t deny it: when I started out I would accept almost anything that came my way, at any hour of the day and every day of the week. I wouldn’t mind working late or working at the weekends, and I think that was mostly due to the fact that my workload was still not regular and I wouldn’t get a full 9-to-5 working day. Consequently, I would have full days where I wasn’t doing any actual translation or interpreting work but I was rather applying to agencies, looking for direct clients, promoting myself online etc…
That reinforced the idea that I could maximise my working output because I had the mental capacity and the stamina to do so, despite the fact that, in hindsight, these seem now like insane working hours.
Boy, was I wrong.
Slowly but surely, my workload increased and I started being pretty busy. I could have easily filled a full 8 hours of work, but because I was living with this delusional idea that I could work more, I took on a lot more, ending up working possibly 12 hours a day, whilst I was on the bus on my way to interpreting assignments, in waiting rooms, whilst I was having lunch and dinner, and I would have probably worked in the shower if my PC had been water-proof. I would honestly feel bad and angry with myself if I didn’t work during the bus ride as I would see that as a waste of precious time, or if I stopped working before six, as those were still productive hours.
On top of that, I was doing so many things on the side, collaborating for two blogs and running the social media of my regional professional association, giving English classes on weekends, taking French classes myself, I ended up filling my weeks and weekends with work, with little time for anything else.
That’s when my body decided it had enough. I suppose it has been a slow but steady process that took place without me even realising it: waking up early in the morning became always a little bit more difficult, I would feel tired and went to bed always a little bit earlier, I would have to take longer breaks at lunch before going back to the PC, I started dozing off on the bus rather than working. If a project meant that I would have to work extra hours I thought twice before accepting it and I possibly even turned it down in the end. I dropped out from one of the blogs and stopped teaching English classes.
When I actually stopped and started thinking about it, I realised how I was forcing myself to plough through because I had convinced myself of two things:
I could do it, as I had been doing it for the past year or so, so I had to do it.
If I didn’t do it, that meant in turn that I was lazy on the one hand, and on the other potentially hindering my business as I wasn’t taking full advantage of the opportunities coming my way and I was losing out on experience and contacts.
That’s when I also realised that my business was doing fine even without me having to wake up at the crack of dawn to start translating and close up after dinner time. I was already being productive enough as I had a sustainable activity that allowed me to live doing what I liked.
I supposed I was also comparing my output volume to those of some colleagues or to the “industry figures” that are considered as minimum standards. That contributed to my belief that I had to work every minute of every hour of every day or else I wasn’t doing enough to sustain my business. I could always do more, otherwise it was just a waste of time.
I have now realised that productivity and being productive can have a very different, and more sustainable, meaning. And I now also know this 'thing' has a name: it's called toxic productivity, and I have been guilty of it since my early teens. I am now trying to stop overworking myself in the name of productivity: I don’t trip-guilt myself into accepting projects if that means sacrificing weekends and I am trying to suppress my inner drill-sergeant. I have learnt that every day is different from the other: Tuesday I might be translating 8000 words per hour (I wish!), ticking off points from my to-do list every five minutes and I am able to sustain a full 8 or 9 hours of work, even going to the gym afterwards; come Thursday I am dragging my feet around the whole day and I need at least 3 coffees to be able to stay awake, let alone concentrate on the open project in Trados.
I have come to terms with the fact that that’s fine, I am only human after all: my mind and body have needs and I have to listen to them if I want to be healthy. I have learnt to factor this in when I schedule projects and estimate deadlines.
I am only at the beginning of this process but I have seen a dramatic change in my mental health already, and also in my approach to my business. I am enjoying working even more now that I don’t stress about having to do everything as much as before, and I am looking forward to finding a sweet spot between productivity and a healthy work routine.
How about you? Have you experienced the same situation as me or a similar one? What was your solution?
