Doing, doing, done.
Being the massive newsletter lad that I now am, I’ve gratefully taken up lovely little mat cover role at Lunch Hour Links. Do sign up if you want to discover all the most fascinating things to read across the internet each week. One of the links I shared this week was to Katherine Ormerod’s Substack in which she details exactly how and why she is so astonishingly productive with her time.
I follow Katherine on Instagram and have always been boggled – and jealous – by how much she gets done. How, I ask myself, does she manage to combine raising two kids, lots of magnificent DIY, a prolific freelance writing career and many excellently-dressed nights out? But the whole point of her piece - in fact its actual title - was that “Getting shit done doesn’t make you a good person”. Instead, Katherine argues that “output culture” is totally unfair because “the way we talk about productivity—as a goal to be achieved if only we tried hard enough—totally misrepresents the reality of how productive people get shit done.” Instead, she says, there is a “genetic and environmental lottery when it comes to productivity”, and consequently no one should feel bad about themselves if they are more predisposed to chilling rather than charging around accomplishing things.
That’s a good way to look at productivity. And yet, the main reason my heart leapt when I saw the topic of her email was because I thought “Aha! This will give me the tips I need to finally start using my time well.”
The number one stick I beat myself with is time wasting. There’s an obstinate voice in my head that says I would simply be a better person if I was more productive. As a result I pore over features about other people’s daily routines and how they get stuff done, half believing I might suddenly discover the secret of how to fully optimise myself and my life. Just think of what I could’ve achieved if I didn’t piddle around for hours watching Instagram reels and eating snacks!
Friends I mention this to think I’m nuts, and have made such wild statements as “you’re the least lazy person I know” (clearly they don’t know me at all) and “you have a full-time job and a child, that’s probably enough”. Is it though?
I’ve succumbed to the ridiculous pressure to do it all. A world where, as well as a job, you must also have a perfect home with Instagrammable tablescapes, bedding arrangements and tidy utility room cupboards; an exercise regime involving lots of Lululemon; wholesome, homemade meals including no processed food whatsoever; a self care routine that doesn’t just involve watching Dinner Date in your dressing gown. In your ‘down time’ you must keep up with culture: the books, films, TV series that everyone is talking about. You must learn about wine. You must use serum, hair masks, two cleansers, a body lotion in the same scent as your perfume and must always apply primer before make up. You must be a fabulous friend, employee, wife, mother, daughter. It’s just a bit bloody tiring isn’t it?
Perhaps it’s the industry I work in that makes me so crazy. My husband, for example, has no idea what all the other tax accountants are up to unless he does a serious deep dive on LinkedIn, whereas I am constantly consuming all the amazing books, podcasts, articles, videos and photos my media peers are creating. I remember reading about another journalist who wrote her first novel on maternity leave, and thinking “oh yes, what a great idea, I’ll do that too”. Then I had a baby who would only nap when being pushed at rapid speed over bumpy pavements (she’s a real character). Reader, I got very fit, but did not write a novel.
The thing is, all these pressures are ridiculous and self-imposed, and actually all anyone cares about is that I do my job and keep myself and my family alive. That’s pretty much it. There’s a moment in Liz Kingsman’s One Woman Show – a genuinely funny parody of the ‘hot mess’ stereotype as exemplified by Fleabag – where the heroine’s boss says to her: look, if you’re holding down a job and you have a home, you’re clearly not the hopeless shambles you think are you. “That’s a really good point” I thought as I watched the show; then tried not to add ‘write own one woman show’ to my mental to-do list as the curtains closed.