Learn English While Tackling Toxic Productivity Ep 786
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Learn more at phrma.org slash IPWorksWonders. Hi there. Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Like things are too much? Have you ever felt the pressure to do more, achieve more, even when it feels too much? A new phrase for you to learn in English and a new idea which is very apt for our modern world. That idea is toxic energy.

productivity. Lots of people suffer from this and until recently it didn't have a name. But we've now found a name for this phenomenon and I can think of many well-known figures who might suffer from toxic productivity. Could this be something affecting you without you realising it? Or maybe it's affecting someone you're close to.

In this podcast, you'll learn how to spot this modern-day phenomenon, improve your mindset, and learn useful English phrases while you're at it. By the end of this podcast, you'll know how to spot signs of toxic productivity in your own life. And this comes from my experience as a psychotherapist, so it's tried and tested. And of course, while listening to this, you'll be improving your English at the same time. We try to be inspiring.

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Today, let's unpack the vocabulary of toxic productivity. The word toxic, T-O-X-I-C, used to be used about the physical world only. If something's toxic, we're talking about a substance that might do us harm. So there might be toxic chemicals in the ground, in the soil, and this might affect our water supply.

Or there might be toxic chemicals in the air that we breathe, which could do us harm. But in recent years, this word toxic has also come to mean what's harmful to us psychologically in our minds. So we talk about toxic relationships.

Relationships which do us damage. We might talk about toxic parenting or about toxic habits or having a toxic workplace even. What we mean by this word toxic is that the person, the relationship or the situation does us harm. It's unacceptable and causes us mental damage or unhappiness over a long period of time.

So toxic productivity, productivity, P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-V-I-T-Y. Well, this noun means how much we produce, how hard we work, how efficient we are, how good we are at producing what our employer wants us to do.

perhaps. And we might complain, oh, I've not been very productive today. Meaning perhaps I've been online looking at Instagram or Snapchat instead of doing what I should be doing. So, of course, we need to be productive in our lives. We need to aspire, strive, have the wish to achieve more in our lives for ourselves, for our families, perhaps. So productivity is good. It's

isn't it? Well, at a wider economic level, governments are always trying to increase economic productivity. And in the UK, at least, the government is despairing about the number of days off sick people take each year. That's not productive. But perhaps where productivity becomes toxic is where the cost to the person is too much. And

An extreme example, if you stayed up all night to complete a piece of work for your job, that might be a heroic or a good thing to do as a one-off, as one time. But if you were to do that frequently, clearly your productivity would be doing you damage. That's an extreme example. What's more likely to affect us?

is chronic toxic productivity. If something is chronic, C-H-R-O-N-I-C, it goes on over a long period of time, but it may still have a damaging effect on our physical and our mental health. Here are two questions to help you identify whether you're affected by toxic productivity. Do you feel guilty when you take a break from work?

as if you're wasting your valuable time. And do you feel that your worth, W-O-R-T-H, depends on constant hard work and that if you just be, you're not worth anything?

From being small children, most of us are encouraged to be productive, to work hard, to be busy, to achieve. We need to pass our exams, work hard at school and college, get jobs, get promotions.

work hard at the gym, work on ourselves. We're supposed to do whatever it takes to achieve these things. And these messages about working hard, being productive and about achieving things, they start early, right from the start of school, usually. The British private school system is very good at educating people and is admired across the world.

Well, I noticed that adults who, as children, were in the British private school system are particularly vulnerable to toxic productivity as adults.

That's not to say that private schools are bad, but this is an environment where there is a real focus on achievement. And if you're a young adult in the UK, especially living in London, and I'm sure many other places around the world, you have to work really hard just to achieve the basics in life. Everything is so expensive, costs so much that you have to work really hard just to have a place to live.

just to pay your bills. So working hard has become so much part of our culture. We see it as normal. We are familiar with the term burnout when someone is literally so tired, so exhausted, so broken by their busy life that they just can't carry on. They can't function normally anymore. It's best to stop before that happens.

And toxic productivity may be what happens on the way to burnout. How to spot toxic productivity? So here are five questions to ask yourself. Does your positive view of yourself depend upon how productive you are? If you feel bad when you take a day off, that can be a sign. If it's difficult to allow yourself to relax,

Take time out. Unwind. Enjoy yourself. If doing this makes you feel guilty or as though you're worthless, this can be a sign of toxic productivity. It can take over your life gradually. And if you measure your personal value, not by what you've already achieved, but by how productive you've been today, that can show there's a problem. Number two, are you a perfectionist?

That's P-E-R-F-E-C-T-I-S-T. If you're a perfectionist, you tend to believe that you need to be perfect in order to just be okay. I meet lots of people in my work who have perfectionism as one of their main drivers. While that may sometimes push them to achieve brilliant work, perfectionism isn't good for your health. The problem is perfectionism.

If you're a perfectionist and it's helped you, you like that side of yourself. You don't suspect that it might harm you or be bad in any way. A common way to see things if you're a perfectionist, if you achieve 100% success, that's okay. But 99% or less, well, that's failure. That's perfectionist thinking. Do you think like that?

Question three, do you find yourself saying yes to lots of things, even when you're already stretched and have too much to do? This is called overcommitment and it's worth addressing if you do this. If you too easily say yes or I'll do it or leave it to me, you're probably prone to overcommitting. You may take on a role for your child's school when you're already busy with work. You

You may be the one that always books the table for the restaurant meal with friends or organises social get-togethers or hosts, the one who always cooks dinner for everyone. And of course, often everyone else is happy to let you do it. So over-commitment is when you readily agree to take on extra tasks individually

even though you haven't got the time or the energy necessarily. And the busiest people are often the ones who take on even more commitments, while other less busy people avoid taking on extra work or tasks.

And of course, if you're a perfectionist, if you've agreed to do something, then you have to do it 100% perfectly. That perfectionist part of yourself is not going to let you off any less. Number four, do you criticise yourself for vegging out?

That's an informal verb. To veg out, V-E-G. Well, it means that we behave like a vegetable, as though we have no purposeful or functioning brain. That's to veg out.

So vegging out may mean simply watching TV or going on social media or doing something similarly unproductive. If busy, driven people find themselves vegging out, they can feel terrible about it. What a waste of time, they say, and it can really affect their self-esteem, their positive view of themselves. But I say, if you spend

you spend a very large part of your life being productive, working hard towards your goals, then you need to veg out sometimes. Try to see vegging out as a positive. It's helping you achieve a balance. If you find yourself

engaging in an activity that doesn't accomplish very much. That's kind of the point. You're taking time off and doing something that's not worthwhile, even though it can give you pleasure. Vegging out time is needed to balance those times when you've been very productive.

when you've worked very hard. And the hard work times are really only possible because you have had vegging out times to balance them. So try to see vegging out as a positive. It's like a type of rest and it helps you achieve some balance.

Vegging out could perhaps even be said to protect you against burnout. And if you're unhappy with the activities you do when you veg out, it's often better to choose non-digital activities. Go for a walk, look after your houseplants, phone a friend or read a book. Then you can feel good about your vegging out time. You can see these as positive activities, but you're having a rest, which is good.

Question five. Do you try to achieve everything on your to-do list?

If you do, this is probably a mistake. I'm sure you're familiar with the Pareto principle. That's P-A-R-E-T-O. Pareto was an Italian economist and social scientist in the early 20th century. His main idea, 80% of outcomes result from 20% of effort, 20% of the actions we take. So this Pareto principle...

is useful for lots of things. It's also known as the law of the vital few and the trivial many. If only 20% of our tasks result in 80% of the outcome, it's good to be more focused in our efforts. Not every task has equal value. So focus on the ones that accomplish most.

and let go the ones that don't. When you're working, there comes a point when it's more important to stop, relax, rest and do something else. As ever, let us know what you think. Let us know if you think you suffer from toxic productivity. Let me know whether the words were too easy or too difficult and do email us with any suggestions for podcast topics.

We're always listening. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com.