The “Productivity Trap” Almost Killed Me – Don’t Let It Do The Same To You

I’m not a fan of the term “work-life balance.”

The words themselves aren’t the problem, though.

It’s the thought that we can somehow get everything we want if we only work harder. That we can find a way to:

Do 100 different things at once
Do them better and faster
Still create time to recharge, travel, and be with our loved ones
And sustain this balance indefinitely

This should sound impossible and crazy because it is.

This lifestyle is supposed to bring us more freedom (at least that’s what others sell you on). But it doesn’t for most of us. Instead, we suffer from burnout, guilt, and worse while continually trying and failing to meet unrealistic and unhealthy expectations.

I call this the “productivity trap,” and it’s very easy to become one of its many victims.

How the trap lured me in

Have you ever looked at managers and entrepreneurs on Instagram (and elsewhere) and fallen for the fantasy they create?

I did.

I saw all these wonderful people who got to:

Build successful businesses
Relax on fancy jets
Work out frequently
Maintain perfect diets
Party in exotic places
And so on

It was everything I wanted and more. And somehow, they were able to do all of it all the time. Amazing!

So, I thought to myself, “I can do it too. I can have it all just like them.”

As you’ve guessed, this is the trap’s lure. It’s not necessarily a certain lifestyle that draws you in – it’s getting to live a lifestyle of your choice and having the power to make such a lifestyle happen.

So, I worked every moment I wasn’t sleeping. By the time I was 24, I had two startups going and three prior. But all I could do was work – by the time the weekend rolled around, I was so tired I could barely brush my teeth.

This should’ve clued me into the problems with the lifestyle I was actually living instead of the one I wanted, but it didn’t. Instead, I thought there was something wrong with me!

I looked at how much others seemed to be accomplishing and told myself all I needed was to make my workflow even more productive, and then everything would fall into place.

I was still young enough to believe in the fantasies they sold on Instagram (and elsewhere) and that I could recreate them myself. I didn’t realize how misleading they were or that the people selling them had assistants and teams to help create them.

Instead, I made the mistake many do by thinking they did it all by themselves.

I became Atlas and shouldered too much

Independence is an important trait. You:

Don’t need to wait for others
Can make decisions yourself
And take initiative when needed

But you can also go too far. For instance, if something went wrong in one of my startups, I thought I had to be the one to fix it.

Team members underperforming? I stepped in to offer guidance and hold hands. Too many bugs in the code? I would review it myself.

Most of the time, this left me:

Busy
Overwhelmed
And tired

It created consequences for other parts of my work, too. I was constantly late with tasks, for example. And people expected things from me I wasn’t able to deliver.

I felt like I was running on a treadmill in a marathon: hustling as fast as I could but still ending up behind.

Then, I took on even more responsibilities as a manager:

Coordinating my team to get things done
Preparing tasks for them
Reviewing code and task implementation
Staying late
Arriving early
Taking care of crises
And more

And then, one day, I realized my team was underperforming:

Engineers were constantly late
Our code was buggy and broken
Technical debt was on the rise

And it just about broke my heart – I was giving everything I had, but we weren’t getting anywhere.

Worse, I was damaging my health – badly.

I got much worse than back pain

It took a while, but my digestive system started having issues:

Gastritis
Stomach ulcers
Throwing up
And worse

At 24, I entered a terrible period of life I wasn’t expecting to experience so soon.

To improve this, I:

Prioritized downtime for about a year
Took up spiritual practices
And got into martial arts

But I didn’t learn my lesson. And soon, I’d ramped everything up to an unsustainable level again.

All of my conditions came back, and I was eventually diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I had one surgery, then another. My Crohn’s relapsed, and additional medication and surgery didn’t help.

It took having to get my large intestine removed for me to realize I was doing something wrong. And it shouldn’t have.

It should never take a serious medical condition and surgery to realize we’re living with a faulty mindset, but that’s what happened to me. I only started feeling normal again around 2019, when I was 34 or so.

I wasted ten years of my life not on living but on:

Overworking
Getting very sick
And recovering

But I did finally escape the productivity trap – the trick was being honest with myself.

How I finally escaped the trap

What I realized over that decade, and through much trial and error, is that I have limits.

My body can only take so much stress and pressure if I want to stay healthy. And my timetable can only accommodate a limited amount of:

Work
Socializing
And learning

Balance came to me when I learned how to do less. A lot of this came down to finding ways to do things without doing them myself.

Before, if someone on my team was underperforming, I blamed myself and took time out of my week to help them improve or to do the task myself. Now, I make my expectations clear – they need to think and learn for themselves and not keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

In other words, I used to treat my team members like children, but now I treat them like adults and professionals. I know my resources are limited and hire people who are independent and quick learners. If someone needs more help, I see if they can be paired up with a senior engineer or someone else who can show them the ropes.

In short, I started delegating.

Delegation is the key

Let’s say you have ten tasks that take one hour each, so maybe you delegate them to four people. If it takes you an hour to explain to each of them what they need to do, you’ve only spent four hours total on the work instead of ten. Now, you have six hours to do other things (like maybe sleep!).

But delegation is more complex than a simple math equation.

For instance, you need to have a team you can rely on. If you’re aware it lacks certain skills, keep these in mind while looking for new people to hire. Or, if you have time, you can help someone improve so you can delegate to them in the future.

Just don’t overdo it.

But delegation will require effort from you regardless. You’ll need to:

Communicate your expectations clearly
Make your team feel comfortable to ask questions for guidance
Get to know who’s good at what (or needs help)
Share successes as much as underperformance
And show them you’re taking on your part of the work, too

You’re no longer alone, so prove to them they aren’t, either. After all, you’re in this together, and they have their own lives to look after. But you can look after them in your own ways, too.

In other words, help them as much as they help you, and everyone lives the best kinds of healthy, enjoyable, and realistic lifestyles they can instead of chasing the opposite.

The short version: be real or lose for real

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if we could only do more, our work-life balance would fall into place. But this mindset leads us to overstretch ourselves. From there, it’s easy to burn out and suffer other consequences.

This happened to me:

I fell into the trap: I got obsessed with Instagram entrepreneurs and thought becoming like them would improve my life
I took on too much myself: I blamed myself when my team underperformed and tried to fix everything alone
I reaped what I sowed: Overwork and stress led to serious and long-lasting health problems
Real productivity means doing less: I eventually realized I have to work within my limits
Delegate, delegate, delegate: Build a good team, communicate well, and have their backs

The game-changer for me was realizing I didn’t have to go it alone. Having a great team you can depend on is essential. Not only will delegation and leaning on your colleagues help you stay sane and healthy, but you’ll also find you’re collectively capable of far more than you are alone.