Why Does Everything Have to Be Productive?

Why Does Everything Have to Be Productive?

On feeling guilty for doing absolutely nothing.

hasif 💌

Oct 22, 2026

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I think one of the most exhausting things about being alive right now is that even when I have absolutely nothing to do, I somehow feel like I should be doing something. I could be sitting in my room on a perfectly ordinary afternoon, with no deadlines breathing down my neck and nobody expecting anything from me, and still feel this irritating little voice in my head asking what exactly I am doing with my time. As if I have been handed a limited number of hours and I am being irresponsible with them by simply existing. It is genuinely ridiculous when I think about it, and somehow I still fall for it every single time.

The worst part is that I have started applying this logic to things I actually enjoy. Reading a book becomes something I should do consistently so I can finish more books this year. Going to the gym becomes a matter of tracking progress, improving my body, and making sure every session counts. Even taking a break comes with this unspoken expectation that I should return feeling refreshed, focused, and ready to get back to work. God forbid I take an afternoon off and return feeling exactly as useless as I did before. Apparently, even rest has to produce results now. We cannot simply lie down and be tired. We have to recover efficiently.

And I hate how reasonable all of this sounds when I explain it to myself. Of course I should use my time well. Of course I should work towards something. I have responsibilities, bills to think about, ambitions that will remain ambitions forever if I never make an effort. I understand that. I am hardly suggesting we abandon everything and spend our lives staring at ceilings. The problem begins when being responsible slowly turns into feeling guilty for anything that cannot be justified as an investment in our future. Somewhere along the way, I started treating my own life like a project that was perpetually behind schedule, and I am exhausted by the thought that there will always be something left to improve.

I wonder when we became so uncomfortable with doing things simply because we wanted to. There is something almost embarrassing about admitting that I want an afternoon to myself, that I want to spend money on something silly, or that I want to do absolutely nothing useful with a free evening. I find myself preparing arguments for decisions that require absolutely no explanation. Why am I buying this? Will I actually use it? Is it worth the money? Could I spend this time doing something better? Sometimes I want to tell the voice in my head to shut up because I am trying to enjoy a perfectly ordinary human experience, and I would appreciate it if my brain could stop behaving like an accountant for five bloody minutes.

I received a submission from one of my subscribers, Mansi Gogia, whose Substack is called The Tasting Menu, and her piece made me think about this whole thing in a way I hadn’t quite put into words before. I want to share her essay with you here because I think it belongs in this conversation.

MANSI’S ESSAY:

You lose the pen. Let me explain.

Everything these days is about efficiencymaxxing- getting gains, optimizing value, edging out friction. And you’re left abstracting every interaction.

You’re not reading, you’re listening to an audio book. You’re not driving, you’re doing Spanish lessons during your morning commute. You’re not just cooking dinner, you’re asking chatGPT how to season the chicken. You’re not just catching up with your friend, you’re squeezing it in a FaceTime.

People wonder why it’s so hard to develop adult friendships and why they miss their school friends. It’s because that was the time that was unscheduled. You just lived life together. There was no plan, no 1.5-hour time limit on a dinner catch-up that took six weeks to schedule.

There’s something about those ‘analog’ days that make it feel like you’re actually alive. Working used to mean physical labor you could feel on your body at the end of the day. It was real. With computer work, exhaustion became mental, adding a layer between you and your work. Now, you’re not even doing the work; you’re project managing a team of AI agents to do it for you - adding another layer of abstraction between you and any possible feeling of fulfillment.

Amid all of this, life was losing its spark. My days were filled to the brim, every moment optimized between my work, my social calendar, and my hobbies. I was life-maxxing without a doubt, but it still felt empty.

I missed play, I missed feeling alive. I just missed

feeling

.

I took myself on an artist date. I went to a bookstore, and found myself engrossed in the pens section. I tried dozens, comparing their ink glides, the weight of each in my hand, and my eyes devoured all the different colors. Even just the act of scribbling brought back a tactile joy that scratched a soul-deep itch.

Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of pens; there is truly no need for another. But still, I found one that I loved: a rich mahogany brown with a sharp felt tip that writes like joy - bold and unconventional.

My adult logic-brain kicked in.

I don’t need this.

This is such a waste of money.

I went back and forth for 15 minutes, testing other options. Was this one really that special?

I pushed myself to the counter- let’s just see how much it costs. $2.50??!?!

I bought the damn pen.

Every morning now, I write with this pen and it brings back that same joy. It reminds me that I’m in the driver seat. In a sea of endless to-do lists, I can break free and surprise myself. I can buy myself a silly little pen to remind myself that I am alive, and that life is meant to feel joyful– but most of all,

to be felt

. That energy changed everything.

Suddenly, my days felt looser. I had time to skateboard, to visit a cafe I’ve been dreaming about forever, and to paint on a random weekday because why not?

Almost instinctually, an inner knowing kicked in - something I’ve ignored for years. I love to paint, to play, to create, to let my artist-brain wander. Why did I deprive myself for years of this 15-minute excursion that cost $2.50, telling myself I didn’t have the time or money?

We get lost in the very routines we lovingly plan, telling ourselves we’ll have time once we reach our goals. But when everything is maximized and goal-oriented, you miss out on that beautiful mahogany brown felt-tip pen, and the radical joy that comes with it.

And isn’t that the whole damn point?

What I appreciated about Mansi’s piece is that it brought this conversation down to something small enough to recognise in our own lives. We spend so much time discussing ambition, discipline, personal growth, and all the things we need to do to build a better future that we rarely stop to question what we are doing to the present. There is always a bigger goal waiting somewhere ahead, and we become so preoccupied with reaching it that our current lives begin to feel like waiting rooms. We are physically here, going through the motions of our days, while mentally negotiating with ourselves about when we will finally have permission to enjoy them.

I think this is also why growing up can feel so strangely disappointing sometimes. When I was younger, an afternoon did not have to justify itself. I could spend hours doing something that would have looked completely pointless to an adult, and the experience was enough. There was no need to turn every interest into a skill, every hobby into a potential career, or every new experience into something worth documenting. I could like something without needing to become good at it. Somewhere between becoming responsible and becoming ambitious, I started feeling that everything I enjoyed needed to lead somewhere, and I don’t think I ever consciously agreed to live like that.

Now, even our hobbies seem to come with expectations. People talk about learning a language, starting a side project, reading more, getting fitter, and developing new skills, and these are all perfectly worthwhile things. I enjoy having goals myself. Yet I sometimes wonder what happens when the only activities we allow ourselves are the ones that make us better at something. What happens to the parts of us that are curious without being particularly talented, that want to try something once and never touch it again, that enjoy an experience without needing to extract a lesson from it? Surely there has to be room for interests that lead absolutely nowhere. Surely we can be terrible at painting, abandon a book halfway through, or spend an evening doing something we will never mention on a résumé.

I am tired of the idea that every hour has to be accounted for, even when nobody is asking for an explanation. Life is already full of things we have to do whether we like them or not. There are bills, work, family obligations, appointments, and all the small inconveniences that make up an ordinary week. I understand why we want to make the most of our time, especially when so much of it seems to disappear into responsibilities. What I struggle with is the feeling that we have taken that necessity and extended it into every corner of our lives, until even the things that once brought us relief have become another set of obligations.

And the irony is that I don’t think this constant need to be productive even makes us particularly happy. It just gives us another reason to feel behind. There will always be someone reading more books, earning more money, travelling more often, exercising more consistently, or doing something impressive with a Tuesday afternoon. There is always another version of ourselves we could be working towards, and if we keep measuring our lives against that imaginary person, the present will never feel sufficient. We can spend years becoming more capable, more disciplined, and more accomplished without ever asking whether we enjoy the life those achievements are supposed to give us.

I don’t have some beautiful conclusion about finding balance, learning to slow down, or embracing the present. I am still the person who feels guilty about wasting an evening and occasionally turns something enjoyable into another task to complete. I still have things I want to achieve, and I know that some of them will require uncomfortable amounts of effort. I am simply beginning to resent the assumption that every part of my existence must contribute to those ambitions. I want to be allowed to have a life that contains things I cannot explain in terms of progress.

Because what is the point of working so hard to build a life if I spend all of it feeling like I should be doing something else? I don’t want to reach some distant age and realise that I spent my twenties preparing to live, measuring my days by what I accomplished and treating every ordinary pleasure as a distraction from something more important. I want to remember things that had absolutely no practical value. I want to remember an afternoon that went nowhere, a book I read slowly, a hobby I was embarrassingly bad at, and the small decisions I made simply because they made an otherwise ordinary day feel a little better.

Perhaps the question is less about how to become more productive and more about why we have made productivity the measure of a life in the first place. We are allowed to want things, work towards them, and take our futures seriously. I just wish we could do all of that without making the present feel like an obstacle we have to overcome.

Some days, I want to do something because it makes me happy, and I don’t want to turn that happiness into anything more useful than itself. I think that should be enough.

Co-Author Substack ID:

Mansi Gogia

IG:

Mansi Gogia

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