Why Productivity Won’t Make You Successful

ByJowi Witt

Over the last years, I’ve been chasing to become more productive.
Trying to get more done.
Always chasing to become more efficient.

I pushed it to the extreme.
You could say I embraced the hustle culture for the glory of God.
But then…

I never finished my to-do list.

I was always feeling rushed.

When I took time off for the family,
it felt like I was missing out on getting stuff done.

It’s a virus of being busy.

When we get asked today,
​“How are you?”​
How often do we reply:
​“Busy.”

We’ve started using “busy” as the measure of how we are.

As I said — I tried to add more and more to my calendar.
I did 10 things faster, but not the 1 thing that actually mattered most.

I was always pushing for a sprint.
My goal was to just get things done as fast as I could,
which made it harder to get anything done that mattered.

Then I found a book
that stated a new way of thinking.

The one question that stuck with me was this:

“What can I do today that will make everything else go away?”

This started a new path of questions and thoughts:

  • What can I cut out of my life?
  • How can I make it simple for me?
  • What is the one thing I have to do — not the many?

I started to say no more,
because I don’t have grace in my calendar for everything.

I had to do what is important,
not just hustle.

You can’t have enough time in your life to do it all.
That’s just reality.

This was the clue I started to get to success —
because I could actually focus on quality over getting busy.

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