Why You Can’t Stop Your Productivity Addiction - Oliver Burkeman
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Is it possible to be the best in the world and relaxed at the same time? It is very possible to be really good at what you do and relaxed. The more relaxed I can be, the better I am at things. The notion that you've either got to choose a relaxing life or an accomplished one is not how it works. There's a tension between having high standards, which involves hypervigilance, obsession, focus, and paying attention to stuff, and that bleeds into the personality and ambient anxiety.
Is it possible to be the best in the world and never relax at the same time? Yes, because the same level of resolution that you're obsessing over your pursuit with destroys the rest of your life. The interesting question is whether you can be on and off or hold things a little more loosely whilst still getting the right level of output.
There's something about wanting to feel in control of the process of getting better at things or being good at things which is completely different from the actual process of getting better or being good at them. People who excel are often in a flow state while doing it. They let go into the action rather than sitting back inside their minds controlling it consciously. For writing or speaking, the more you try to make sure things go well, the more you're unreleased, clenched, muscles tensed, and pop into a self-conscious space where nothing works. It's much better to lose yourself in the activity than to try to control it.
Many people struggle to find a healthy way to pursue goals without tying their self-worth to the outcome. The only way to pursue a goal is if you care about it, and in caring, you'll be disappointed if you don't reach it, and the disappointment is a value judgment about your worth. How do you healthfully pursue goals without tying self-worth to the outcome?
There's a way of caring about goals that defines yourself as inadequate until you've met them, and other ways of caring. The concept of the insecure overachiever—half the people in a room recognize it. People who do really well in life, driven and applauded, but doing it to fix something about themselves, feel okay, or fill a void. Many successful people feel they absolutely have to succeed otherwise they don't deserve to exist.
This puts you in a perpetual place where goal pursuit is to make yourself feel less bad about yourself. Anything you achieve instantly becomes the minimum standard to meet next time, which is depressing. You do well at an exam or get public success, and it becomes the baseline—if you don't meet it next time, who are you?
Another way: entertain the possibility that everything was fine right now, you feel good about yourself without self-worth psycho dramas, and then decide to create cool things because it's more interesting than doing nothing. You can be ambitious and accomplished without fleeing from something.
Curse of competence: when things go well most of the time, success is no longer a reason for celebration; it's the minimum level of acceptable output. John Bellion Luke song: "if the higher I climb is the further I fall, then why love anything at all?" Pattern matched to personal development.
Podcast charted high globally on Spotify in December last year. Goldilocks zone of enjoyment before realizing next year must be better: approximately 15 minutes. Then thought about 2026 charts 11 months and 30 days away, nose back to grindstone.
Ryan Holiday video: got call from publisher hitting New York Times list, took 90 seconds, posted on Instagram, then "got to get back to writing the next book." Performative grindset.
Author more successful than me: first big book hit top of charts, friends overjoyed on WhatsApp. By fourth, fifth, sixth bestseller, only felt relief, not amazement—now the bare minimum.
Question at live show: when things go well, is your presiding sensation joy or relief? Congratulation of self-love or abatement of fear? That's gripping life too tightly.
Seeing the dynamic is more powerful than any technique: turning successes into reasons to beat yourself up makes no sense.
Because we are finite creatures, all going to die, with limits on control and time, there's a powerful, liberating sense that you've already failed. Let go of desperate white-knuckle clinging. Metaphor: life like plane already crashed, you're on the desert island in the smoking wreckage, doing what you can with what's in front of you.
Not unambitious or resigned—invigorating to realize you don't have to stave off great failure; that's just being alive.
One day I'll die but my inbox will continue to accumulate emails that will forever go unanswered. You cannot do everything. There will come a day when time is up with things still wanted to do—so failure is the set point if criteria is doing everything.
Not just fail to do everything, but fail to reach perfect standards or have uniform positive responses. Seeing things outside our control makes it easier to waste less time trying to control them, freeing up time for things you want.
Krishna Mert's secret of existence: "I don't mind what happens." (Note: likely Krishnamurti.) In 1970s California, spiritual teacher asks group: do you want my secret? "I don't mind what happens."
Ultimate statement recognizing limitations of control, how much time spent anxiously leaning into next hour/day/week, waiting to ensure things are okay (usually they are), then leaning into next.
Doesn't mean some things aren't better than others or you shouldn't try to make things go well. When whatever happens does happen, no automatic stressful collision between what you demand reality do and what it does. Put effort into best outcomes, but not bent out of shape if not.
Shift of perspective to embody on best days, largely unreachable gold standard, but orienting principle.
At comedy shows like Mothership in Austin: lineup of 8 comedians, 5-10-15-30-60 minute spots. Next-guying through every comedian: can't wait for next as current starts, until show's over, then can't wait for bed, then morning.
People lean toward the next thing to control it, deal with uncertainty. Most of work around control—need for control, desire to control.
Is control the reduction of uncertainty? What is it trying to achieve?
Being human is overpoweringly intense and vulnerable: didn't choose to be born, limited time, limited steering ability, going to die. Pursuing strategies to feel like getting out of it or on top of it—levering into controlling life instead of being in it.
Mainstream productivity culture develops feeling of being in driver's seat. Sometimes numbing/distraction: focusing on what you want would feel vulnerable (plan might not work, conversation not go as wanted).
Capacity to live not a decade in future (promotion, retire), but 20 minutes or hour ahead. Even unimpressive amounts of time, waiting for next thing to go okay. At comedy clubs, weird vicarious empathy for performers dying on stage.
At 38 next month, what changes for insecure overachiever as they age? Turned 50. People in 20s/30s relate as older generation.
Gradually, accretion of experience: world doesn't collapse when you break achievement streak. Greater basic confidence in knowing what you're doing (e.g., writing).
Healthfully manage midlife crisis, dawning mortality, second half of life: awareness it's got to be now—when to do that thing, travel, learn skill.
Die with Zero by Bill Perkins (lives in Austin, Texas): dangerously possible to defer gratification too long.
Combination of knowing what you're doing and having to do it now creates calm and happiness. "Hurry the fuck up" as motivation.
Phone background: "Do it anyway" with images of a gentleman walking up an exploding ravine amid cosmic hellfire. Represents doing it scared, uncertain, tired—not forceful grinding like "just do it."
Do it anyway speaks to not knowing how, uncertainty it will work, but doing it anyway—especially important as you get older.
British version: "You might as well."
Stakes shift with age; less to lose or never had what you thought to lose. Elizabeth Gilbert: scared to surrender because afraid of losing control, but never had control, only anxiety.
True hell is the person you are meeting the person you could have been. Painful hell: end of life realizing you had nothing to lose but feared it all along, arriving at that place anyway with time passed.
Skeptical of engineered fun, especially corporate or personal, as engineering it for outcomes leads to vigilant monitoring, not genuine fun.
Revelation: let productivity be guided by what you feel like doing or enjoy. Insecure overachievers distrust themselves, fearing they'd unspool into sofa potato if not rigid.
But if ambitious, easing up doesn't wreck you. Harness energy by noting what you want instead of squashing it. Rigid systems waste energy by forcing Y over preferred X.
Discovery: among enjoyable things are work or obligations at certain moments, as you want to be organized and keep commitments. No-lose if professional situation permits navigating by fun.
Interest is everything. When procrastinating, unvibrant career, or stuck choices, ask if forgotten building days around interests.
People nerf interests thinking not marketplace-effective. Evident in digital content: audience capture or giving audience what they want over personal interest.
Irony: people want content from those alive with interest.
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Fading from personal interest worsens show quality, even if numbers rise. For charity or pediatric neurosurgeon, outcome matters over enjoyment.
Content is vibes, energy, language. Said no to shocking guests if didn't feel right. Repeat favorites like Morgan Housel (7th time), Rory Sutherland (11th time, nearly 1% of podcast).
Tension: marketable vs. effective; momentum > ability/quality. Play game for momentum then land into niche.
Connecting to the aliveness is the ultimate point.
Numbers may boost short-term but not indefinitely. Why care if not meaningful experience beyond basics?
Instrumental goals lead to ladder against wrong wall.
AI enables scaling unauthentic work, taking credit for non-work (e.g., organization underlings now nuclear for all).
Example: AI writes perfect argument repair message (meaningful, loving, compromising, psychological principles, light-hearted, 5-year relationship). Partner loves it, but you feel fraud as not your genesis—miss capturing goodwill for being the muse.
Using LLMs for control, right words misses relationship repair from saying wrong thing first.
Therapy speak is generic LLM output or overused brains—opposite of good therapy's real relationship with conscious human, not jargon/pathology.
Text communication enables delete/edit, secondary to spoken language (editable written a microsecond of history). Creates self-assessment, cajoling, semi-manipulative energy.
If books first-pass only, literature mess—but insight valuable.
Elite turn enjoyable into drag—inverse stoicism.
Frankl's inverse law: When a man can't find deep sense of pleasure, distracts with meaning. Prioritize meaning over happiness because happiness hard; delayed gratification noble as gratitude elusive.
Need to do what you care about now, not bank on future after duties clear—duties never clear. Start novel, parents, climate change, fun now.
Hard things reliable satisfaction even if joy elusive.
Grace maps to embodied living vs. head/intellect. Feel air on skin, enjoy coffee not scalding for caffeine.
Insecure overachievers live in head, frontal cortex, drag into future via thinking. Public figures show it.
Obsess body for looksmaxing/fitness still future-oriented. Gym rat and hyperobsessive autist Venn diagrams overlap via control desire.
Agency beautiful but limit; guard rails. Agency ≠ control.
Relaxing control need acquires agency/power. Trying to bend reality to deep emotional needs disempowers, makes fragile.
When basic worth not tied to outcomes, fully lean in. No limit to agency if not control/domination urge with hidden agenda beyond joy.
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What is the cost of constantly asking whether you're living your best life? It invites finding your current life wanting compared to a fantasy best life. Suspicious of the notion of a best life or fully realizing your potential—these are concepts, not reality, with no stopping rule. You could do amazing things and still not know if you've maximized potential or achieved the best possible life.
Communications professor tweet: being underrated is a compliment, overrated an insult. This is social signaling—claiming to detect unrecognized brilliance or hype in others. Applies to self-judgments of potential: estimations plucked from obscurity, fantasies. Ask when self-critical: What else could you have done? Realization: not much more; played in the margins, gave it a good shot, close to capability.
Type A people have a Type B problem, Type B people have a Type A problem. Insecure overachievers need to chill and relax; lazy people need discipline. Subscribers likely Type A: walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity. Type A get little sympathy—miserable but successful vs. content but lazy on verge of bankruptcy. Problems of opportunity get less sympathy than scarcity; one feels like choice, other limitation.
"I need to be disciplined" feels noble; "I need to switch off" feels indulgent. No underdog movie has training montage for logging off Slack or enjoying vacation. Type A may have better objective lives but subjective misery: wake feeling behind, must dominate day flawlessly to reach acceptable output, sleep without feeling like loser. "Just work harder" makes people more outwardly successful, treated as panacea. More need David Goggins' "go harder" than Eckhart Tolle's "you are enough," but some need parasympathetic Goggins: rest harder. Type B problems as tough, solved by peace, not harder work.
Selection bias: hard-charging, self-punishing people consume "work harder" content—they're already in deep, need fuel. Relaxed people consume relaxation content. People needing to relax most prone to "work harder" messages.
Essay "Advice Hyperresponders": people needing medicine don't take it; those likely to overdose have too much. MeToo example: told men not to be pushy—those needing confidence took it to heart, boundary-violators ignored. Advice amplifies fears, predispositions. Yeats: worst full of passionate intensity, best lack conviction.
Books appeal to time management seekers, then destroy worldview—lure with dopamine, pull rug out.
Journey to produce highly while enjoying, not gripping tightly (inspired by Oliver, Alain de Botton, Joe Hudson, therapy). Two problems:
- Public criticism: saying things disagreeing with past self (e.g., "just work harder bro" now critiqued as selling problem then solution). Never presented as only way; experimenting, caveated against self-harm. Sounds like high agency to low agency, not low to high—less palatable than gripping tighter.
- Loss of congruence: identity wrapped in hard-charging. Thoughts, intentions, actions, goals, outcomes aligned. Figures like Trump, Andrew Tate, Andrew Huberman highly congruent—a boxing loss damaged Tate's image by slotting incongruence. Relinquishing strategies worsens real-world results briefly until new mastery. From outside, looks like devolving to pre-escape state.
Criticism professionally specific. Oliver's journey: sarcastic about self-help early, to sincerity—criticized as becoming guru. Incongruence key: move from strategies that served time (original midlife crisis definition: shift from first to second adulthood, separating from family of origin). Remaining congruent lifelong is disaster—people stuck with late-20s attitude in late 50s, too intent on establishing self.
James Hollis: goal of good therapy is making life more interesting to you. World sees as pathetic; actually all psychotherapy can do and all needed for absorbing, meaningful life.
Recent phases: unable to work for weeks, unclear direction, out-of-sorts—not depression, but old ways falling away, new not figured out. Around congruent people, feel inferior—used to be peers, now falling behind, like floppy red rope candy vs. singular spear. Like crab outgrowing shell trying to force back in—delays growth, feels bad, lacks nobility of evolution or past congruence.
Remind smugly: their congruence from not grappling truths. Requires staying in middle alchemical stage—stand firm, don't tamper irritably. Never easy/pleasant, but intuitively growthy/generative: out of control, but something happening.
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In Four Thousand Weeks, settling means finitude requires accepting downsides for security or benefits from commitments like relationships or jobs.
There are always downsides. You can do what you like. You only need to face the consequences. (Sheldon Kopp)
People who refuse to settle chase a nonexistent option with no downsides. Every choice has negative consequences.
Not advocating specific actions like long-term relationships, but recognize alternatives also involve settling—accepting different trade-offs like indecision or commitment phobia.
Keeping options open means spending time without long-term relationship benefits.
Deciding which trade-off to make is often intuitive. Main reason for not committing: restless fantasy of no trade-offs, holding out for nonexistent perfection.
Seeing this dynamic makes it clear: this is the path or commitment to make, as the only barrier was avoiding loss or disappointment.
New book on aliveness—mysterious quality missing from many experiences, present when things go well. Intangible sense of immersion in meaningful activities.
Barrier: clenching (or grasping). Antidote: unclenching or relaxing into the situation for agency and enjoyment.
Stems from unnerving times causing people to clam up amid chaos, uncertainty, politics, AI, crises. Relaxing into it useful for daily life and broader engagement.
Not activism or ignoring crises to focus solely on personal life/business—avoids both camps, seeks middle path.
Avoids cloyingly prescriptive frameworks, spiritual transcendence, or science-based well-being like neuroscience studies. Captures quality of right experiences squeezed out by modern culture, ultimately about control.
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