Not Really A Fan 

of productivity culture (but I keep negotiating with it)

Productivity culture promised freedom and delivered scorekeeping.

I've read the books. Tried the systems. Downloaded the apps that claim to transform my chaotic brain into a well-oiled machine. I've time-blocked my calendar, batched my tasks, and gamified my habits like I'm optimizing a video game character instead of living a life.

It works. Sort of. Until it doesn't.

The problem isn't the tools—it's the underlying assumption that I'm a problem to be solved. That my natural rhythms are bugs, not features. That rest is something I earn through output rather than something I need to produce anything worth keeping.

Productivity culture sells itself as liberation. Do more in less time so you can reclaim your life. Except the goalposts move. Efficiency creates capacity, and capacity gets filled immediately. I'm not working less—I'm just working faster, which means I can fit more work into the same amount of suffering.

The language is insidious. "Deep work." "Peak performance." "Leverage your time." It sounds like self-improvement, but it's just capitalism wearing a meditation app. I'm not becoming my best self—I'm becoming a better unit of production who feels personally responsible when the system fails.

And yet.

I can't fully abandon it. Because some of it actually helps. Having a system means I don't forget things. Time-blocking means I occasionally protect space for work that matters instead of reacting to whoever yells loudest. The Pomodoro timer trick works when my brain won't start on its own.

What I've learned is that productivity culture is useful when I treat it like a tool and dangerous when I treat it like a religion. The moment I start measuring my worth by my output, I've lost. The moment I feel guilty for an unproductive day, the system has become the master instead of the servant.

So I keep negotiating. I use the parts that help me think clearly and ignore the parts that make me feel broken for being human. I time-block my mornings and waste my afternoons without shame. I track my habits until tracking becomes another chore, then I stop.

Productivity culture wants me to believe I'm always one system away from finally getting my life together. The truth is messier: I'm already together enough, and the endless optimization is just another way to avoid sitting with that reality.

I'm just Not Really A Fan.

NRAF