Posted on by Sean

Is productivity/ efficiency the first step to self-care? (PART I)

Self-care, social-emotional support, resiliency, mindfulness, meditation – all these are trending in education; specifically around supporting teachers. This is critical to the success of our teachers and students. As the old adage goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup; but the question is: in a world of constant input, distraction, and never-ending to-do lists – how can one find the time for self-care?
A few years ago we had moles pop up in our back yard. I tried everything to get rid of them, even bought a mole-smoke that went into the holes to push them out, and send them into the forest across the street from us. It wasn’t until I put down grub killer that the moles decided to move. Once I was able to get rid of their food source, they moved on.  What was under the surface that had to be addressed in order to solve the real problem of these countless molehills in our back yard.
Self-care is the same way. Often you’ll hear someone say that they are overwhelmed or stressed out with their responsibilities. That is valid: COVID-19 has put extra stress on us and certainly highlighted personal problems that we may have been able to bury for some time.
My follow up question to most folks: What do you do with your responsibilities when they become overwhelming? This is often met with blank stares or jokes about “ignoring them or doing mildly self-destructive behavior.
When the ground shakes, we cling to anything that is stable, and this is why productivity is key for our own self-care. When we are overwhelmed if we have no systems in place to take care of our basic responsibilities, how can we even dream to take care of the challenging parts of our job or life? How can we spend our mental capital on researching a new educational method, when the weight of going to the grocery store seems overwhelming?
Social-Emotional Benefits of Productivity:
  1. More creativity – It’s true, author Austin Kleon shares that the best artists are the ones who have the best routines

  2. Calmness – If you have a predictable system, you know how to break down even the biggest tasks. The growing number of things on your plate isn’t overwhelming, they are just cogs in your system.

  3. Time to do what you want – Productivity Systems don’t exist so you can do more work. They exist so that you can find time to do things that are beneficial to you and those around you. They exist so that you are able to devote your full attention and energy to something that matters, giving it the appropriate time, not waiting until the last minute.

    Cal Newport describes this in part as the 4 C’s of the deep life.

We need productivity, and specifically systems to support it. We aren’t talking about being “busy;” or doing work at a cut-throat pace that we find ourselves burning out.  It’s about finding a system that you can use to identify and complete your responsibilities. In doing so, we are able to do the self-care activities that we actually want to do – that lead us to a deep, meaningful life.

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