Productivity is for losers!
How I learned to stop worrying and love doing f*ck all
Last month I absolutely smashed my goals. I finished my book (out next Spring), and I ran an accumulative 100km for charity (thanks if you sponsored me). I felt really great. But, let’s be real, I can’t sustain that level of achievement. Nor should I try to. It would be bad for me mentally, physically, and emotionally. So I thought about having a personal ‘Slob June.’ Sit around in my pants all day, eating crisps, playing Fifa - that sort of vibe. But after a day or two of that, I’ll admit, I started to feel a bit anxious and miserable.
Like anyone else, I have spent my whole life being indoctrinated into the cult of productivity. It’s natural that I should feel weird when I try to take a break. Anyway, this week, someone gave me a great bit of advice to achieve balance: each day, try to do one thing that’s productive and one thing that’s relaxing. They can be small things. The key is to set the bar pretty low. If you start each day with a lengthy to-do list and don’t complete it, you will probably feel crap about yourself. But if your list only has two things on it (and one of those things is a bit indulgent) then you’ve got a great chance of succeeding.
Mix it up. Maybe send an important work email in the morning then grab a twenty-minute nap in the afternoon. Or have a run, then read a book. Do the laundry then treat yourself to a wank? Whatever works. It all comes down to personal circumstances and taste. The point is, try not to get too wrapped up in being busy all the time.
I’ve written more about why productivity is for losers below. But first, let me give you a heads up. Soon, I’ll be launching a new subscription tier that will give you access to a brand new weekly podcast - Club Reset! Rather than a one-on-one interview with a different guest each week, this new pod will feature myself and two or three other blokes (some returning guests from previous Reset episodes) having a free flowing discussion about mental health and whatever else is on our minds. It’s a less formal way of sharing and, I hope, should be a bit of a laugh too. There will also be a new exclusive newsletter with weekly recommendations of great stuff to read, see, listen to and do.
If you’re already a subscriber to The Reset or The Reset Extra then, don’t worry, you’ll continue to get this newsletter and the usual podcast each week.
But if you’d like to upgrade to the new level, then keep your eyes peeled - I’ll send out more info next week.
And if you’d like to upgrade to The Reset Extra now for less than the price of a pint, then go ahead and do so! Your paid subscriptions will help this magnificent organ to keep going. And you will have my eternal gratitude too. But, you know, no worries either way.
All the best! Love you! Sam
Why Busyness Is a Conspiracy!
I saw an ad today for a drink called ‘Rock Star Energy.’ The slogan was ‘For the Do-It-All You.’ It was plastered on the side of the shelter where my daughter waits for her bus to school. Presumably she is the target audience. Kids her age guzzle these drinks because they’re told it will help them drag themselves in an out of school, get their studying done and still have the get-up-and-go to do whatever it is adolescents do in their spare time. It’s like their minds are being softened up to the cult of productivity before they even reach adulthood. Young people are told that they must study hard, play an instrument, get some work experience, help the elderly, participate in various sports clubs and learn to code before they’ve even tried their first fag.
What a load of horse shit. I don’t make my kids do anything beyond go to school, do their homework and read the odd book once in a while. That’s enough. Why would I want to exhaust the poor bastards any further? There is a mental health epidemic among young people in this country. I am not surprised: they are under obscene amounts of pressure to live out a demented Thatcherite fantasy of what childhood should be. I reckon childhood should be balanced carefully between learning and lazing about.
They teach you important stuff at school, sure. But, when I was a kid, I’m convinced I learnt an equal amount while lazing about, listening to records, reading comics and just thinking things through. Adolescence is a unique little window in life where your brain is ready to tackle some of life’s bigger questions unincumbered by the dreary expedients of adulthood.
You can spend your time absorbing movies, music and books or just sitting about in your bedroom staring at the ceiling. You can hang about with your mates talking shit and doing absolutely nothing of consequence. It helps form your personality and develop a worldview. It nurtures the imagination. Plus, it’s fun. You don’t have to make decisions or shape responses based on scary practical matters like money or career. You can just see where the wind takes you. The opportunity to do that stuff is brief so it’s worth making the most of. Fuck your Duke Of Edinburgh and your viola lessons. Go up the park and dick around with your mates for a few hours or stay at home and watch re-runs of the American Office. It’s good for the soul.
Productivity is an addiction like any other. We all get a nice little buzz from completing a task or reaching some benchmark of personal development. Nothing wrong with that. Unless you start to rely on those little buzzes as your only reliable source of comfort in an otherwise anxious existence. Before you know it, you are hooked on non-stop progress, achievement and growth. You need to be busy all the time. As you continually chase that buzz, you can become increasingly resistant to its impact. And so you require greater achievements, bigger successes, a more relentless schedule in order to maintain the same basic level of contentment.\
There is very little difference between this and an addiction to booze, coke or meth. True, being busy might make you richer, fitter, or smarter (although there’s no guarantee – history is littered with as many lazy success stories as it is overactive losers). And you might argue that drugs and booze do the opposite: they make you poor, desperate, and unhealthy. But even that’s not strictly true. Cocaine can make you more productive (trust me, I used to swear by it when I was on a deadline – it was incredibly effective for a while). Alcohol, taken in the right amounts, can give you the sense of relaxed confidence that might well assist your endeavours socially, professionally, and romantically. But they are short term fixes to your state of inner discontent. The more you rely on them, the less you can cope with life naturally, without those stabiliser wheels.
Productivity addiction is just the same. If you can’t learn to sit in a room content to be alive, enjoying your own company, coping peacefully with the ups and downs of your own thought patterns, then life is always going to be a frantic struggle. You’re always going to be seeking a distraction. Can you stay busy and productive forever and ever? Probably not. But you could certainly die trying.
Sometimes I feel as if my goal is to ascend to a distilled form of perfect laziness. I think that I will only be truly content when I have learnt to do fuck all for days on end without any sense of guilt, shame or worry. I am nowhere near that state yet. But at least I have ditched the strange, vaguely fascistic urge to be regarded as a constantly busy, do-it-all, cyber-human.
This is what awful marketing people want us to dream of. They want us to buy their energy drinks and pursue the fool’s gold of perma-activity. If we just learn to do fuck all, then they would be screwed. It’s hard to monetise laziness. We can’t let stupid marketing people shape our dreams. We are all better than that. I mean, what possessed them to call their drink ‘Rock Star Energy’ anyway? Rock stars are notoriously lazy. David Bowie and Prince didn’t learn their trade by subscribing to online productivity courses. If Jimi Hendrix were still around today, it’s doubtful he would be drinking energy pop, competing in triathlons or applying to be on The Apprentice. Rock stars learn how to be rock stars by staying out late at the disco then waking up at lunchtime the next day and spending the afternoon thinking idly about space or sex or God or nice clothes.
The Reset Ep 57 - Bill Gardner
ICYMI, last week’s podcast was with fellow Hammer and terrace legend, Bill Gardner. Bill was a notorious figure at football grounds up and down the land throughout the seventies and eighties. But his hard-man image disguised an inner-pain and vulnerability that resulted from a deeply traumatic childhood. In this surprising and fascinating chat, Bill describes his extraordinary and shocking upbringing in London’s east-end and encourages would-be tough-guys to open up about their true feelings. Inspirational stuff. You can listen here.
And buy Bill’s incredible book here
Me On The Manatomy podcast
Also, I hope you didn’t miss my appearance on the excellent Manatomy podcast with Danny Wallace and Phil Hilton. I talked about mental health, baldness, addiction and all sorts. It was a right laugh.
Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times
https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123
@calm 0800 58 58 58
@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138
@CharitySane 0300 304 7000
https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/
https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/
https://andysmanclub.co.uk/
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/gambling-addiction/
This attitude has helped me so much in recovery. Thank you, sincerely for all you put out there. I am 2 years sober today, thanks in a large part to you making sobriety so acceptable and putting so much content on the subject out there.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all you do.
Famous actor (and possible associate of your sister via Ted Lasso) Zach Braff talks about using a whiteboard to help keep you working towards your targets on his pod.
While he puts his life & career goals on a it to help him work towards them I put a few little easily achievable goals up for the week along side some Just Rest rewards.
Keeps me from being too dis n dat towards getting shit done but reminds me it’s alright to relax too.