Week 5 : Living is not a to do list

When did life become a series of boxes to check rather than moments to experience? This week explores how our relationship with productivity has shaped our relationship with living itself, and how to return to a more experiential way of being.

Productivity culture promises that if we just optimize enough, we’ll finally arrive at the life we want. But this approach treats life like a problem to be solved rather than an experience to be lived. When everything becomes a task, we lose touch with the inherent value of simply being alive.

The speed that our culture demands disrupts what we might call your personal capital, your energy, attention, presence, and capacity for deep experience. When you’re always rushing toward the next item on your list, you miss the richness of where you currently are.

Living: Experiencing, feeling, connecting, being present, responding naturally

Managing: Optimizing, controlling, achieving, planning, forcing outcomes

Both have their place, but when management takes over living, we lose touch with what makes life meaningful.

Exercise 1: The Task Free Hour

Each day, designate one hour where you’re completely free from tasks, goals, or productivity. Don’t plan what you’ll do. Simply exist and respond to what naturally arises. Notice any anxiety about wasting time.

Exercise 2: The Experience Journal

Instead of a traditional to do list, keep an experience journal. Each day, write down:

One beautiful moment you noticed

One feeling you allowed yourself to feel fully

One connection you made (with another person, with nature, with yourself)

One thing you appreciated about simply being alive

Exercise 3: The Slow Activity Practice

Choose activities that have no productive outcome and do them slowly:

Watch clouds move across the sky

Listen to music without multitasking

Have a conversation without an agenda

Take a bath purely for pleasure

Walk without a destination

Exercise 4: The Anti-Optimization Week

For one week, consciously avoid optimizing anything. Don’t try to make activities more efficient, don’t look for shortcuts, don’t multitask. Simply do things at their natural pace and notice what you discover.

Weekly Practice

Each evening, instead of reviewing what you accomplished, reflect on how you felt throughout the day. Ask: How did I experience being alive today? rather than What did I get done today?

How has treating life like a to do list served or limited me?

What would I do more of if it didn’t have to be productive?

When do I feel most alive and present, and what are the conditions that support this?

How would my daily rhythm change if I prioritized experience over accomplishment?

Imagine your life as a poem rather than a business plan. What would be different? What would you prioritize? How would you spend your time? Write about this vision without worrying about how to make it practical or productive.