Scared to take time off work? The productivity drive is making victims of us all - Arwa Mahdawi
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Loading... - Kelly Cable
- 06 Nov 2021
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I realise this is a complaint worthy of the tiniest of violins, but I find going on holiday very stressful. It’s not the packing, the travel or the jetlag that is stress-inducing – it’s the whole not-working thing. It’s the guilt that I’m not being productive; the worry that I’m wasting time.
Part of this anxiety is down to being a freelancer. While there are numerous benefits to being mistress of your own time, paid holiday doesn’t number among them. Being self-employed also makes it hard to say no to work because you’re never certain you’ll get more. But anxiety about unplugging certainly isn’t confined to freelancers; research shows lots of people find taking time off difficult. This is particularly true in the US, where I live; the only advanced economy where workers aren’t guaranteed paid leave. Those who do have paid holiday often don’t take it; a 2017 survey by the careers website Glassdoor found more than half of Americans fail to use all their holiday time, largely because of fear. Fear of getting behind on work; fear of not seeming dedicated enough.
Resting-anxiety levels aren’t much better in Britain. A recent survey of more than 1,000 UK workers by the Institute of Leadership & Management found the prospect of a holiday made 73% of workers feel stressed out. And 61% of people felt obliged to work on holiday.
It’s sad that so many of us seem to find taking time off traumatic. But it’s not exactly surprising. Technology has made it virtually impossible to ignore our inboxes and take a break. And, on a deeper level, capitalism has conditioned us to value ourselves according to our output. “I produce, therefore I am,” to paraphrase Descartes (who was clearly a slacker). It’s normal and healthy to derive a sense of purpose from work, of course. But the extent to which we worship productivity has become, I think, toxic.
Take, for example, an ad campaign by the freelance marketplace platform Fiverr, which ran in New York last year. The campaign, “In Doers We Trust”, consisted of black-and-white photos of “doers”, overlaid with “motivational” headlines. “You eat a coffee for lunch,” read one poster, featuring a dead-eyed, gaunt young woman. “You follow through on your follow through. Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice. You might be a doer.” Yeah, maybe, but there’s also a chance you might be malnourished and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Fiverr’s campaign rightly generated considerable backlash. Nevertheless, the idea we should all be working ourselves to death in order to be worth anything in life is ingrained in our culture. Just look at the amount of productivity porn we are bombarded with. The media are obsessed with daily routines of the rich and famous – all of whom seem to accomplish more before 4am than I do in a week.
You know what I’d really love to see at the bottom of one of these Day in the Life of a Very Busy Very Successful Executive articles? A disclaimer saying: “Do not try this at home.” A footnote pointing out that said CEO, who reads 10 books and runs 10 miles before breakfast, is probably exaggerating and has an army of assistants. A reminder that we’re humans, not goddamn machines.
Anyway, I must admit I’m largely writing this for my own benefit because I have just arrived in Mexico on holiday and am feeling anxious about putting the laptop away. Like I said, a problem truly worthy of a tiny violin. And, I reckon, a large glass of mezcal.
