How To Be Productive, Even When You Have No Energy
“How To Be Productive, Even When You Have No Energy” is on a pick background with “productive” in purple cursive and “no energy“ underlined in purple swiggly line. Two blue gradient rings, one on the top left corner and one on the bottom right corner.
What does a productive day feel like to you?
The satisfaction that you have completed everything you set out to do?
Knowing you went above and beyond and met the expectations of what or who you consider successful?
Balancing the competing priorities that you face in your life?
Surviving?
These feelings of productivity are entirely personal, evident in how productivity is subjective. However, we cannot underestimate how society’s expectations of productivity influences how we perceive our own actions and perspectives on what is considered a successful day.
The Pressures of Paid Work
You have the pressures of the hustle culture that is dominant in paid work. The idea is to contribute as much work as possible and invest so much time to impress your supervisor that may not value the output you put out. To continue that “high quality” work that is demanded from you as your value seems to only be placed in your paid work.
Paid work is not the only place where being productive exists. The pressure to keep up with unpaid work along with the demands of paid work can be exhausting and there is still pressure to have unpaid work be unequally divided among genders. Productivity looks different based on the lifestyle and experiences that a person has. It does not always have to be the expectation of hustle culture.
How I View Productivity
I learned the hard way that I cannot live up to the hustle with my disabilities. Just living can already be draining. Pre-pandemic, I was doing a lot, full-time studies, part-time work, volunteer work, and attempting to take care of myself. My flare-ups were never-ending because I seem to take a long time to recover due to the pressures I took on to live an unbalanced life. As the pandemic forced me to slow down, I learned my pain signals. I realized that if I maintain the balance of all my ambitions plus make sure that sleep, rest, and pain management are prioritized, I can actually do more.
It can be surprising. I learned to be more focused, plan accordingly, and accept that my day-to-day life will never look the same. If my chronic pain or a sensory overload is occurring, taking care of myself first means that I recovered faster and was able to be in optimal productivity more often. I actually took on more after 2020 because I could depend on myself more to show up.
Knowing my priorities and balancing my ambitions with my life is key to productivity for me. It does not mean that I have the same idea of feeling productive every day. If I am in a flare-up, surviving is a great day. If I have more energy, getting a little ahead is considered a success. If I dedicated a day as a rest day and I actually took the time to refuel myself, that is probably the most successful aspect of my week (because I seem to forget to set this boundary sometimes).
It is up to you how you want to define your day, and it can look different every day.
The Challenges When You Are Disabled
Being deaf and disabled means that I have limited energy and I need to use it wisely. It also means that I need to give myself grace when I have to set a boundary or make a choice that is best for me. The best explanation of the fluctuating energy levels of being disabled is the Spoon Theory.
Christine Miserandino, the author of butyoudontlooksick.com coined “Spoon Theory” to explain to a friend what it is like to live with Lupus. It is a visual and tactile representation of how energy is depleted and the decisions that people with disabilities face in their day-to-day lives. I highly recommend reading “The Spoon Theory” to fully grasp the challenges of completing day-to-day tasks.
The challenges typically gets categorized into 3 ways
The extra time needed to complete a task
The extra steps that has to be taken that those without disabilities never thought of
and, having to adapt to how you are feeling and need
The decision we have to make is not always for our present self, our potential future self also have to be taken into consideration so that we always have energy to do the basic tasks for survival and safety. If there is any potential for a worst day tomorrow, we have to prepare for that.
So, how do I manage my fluctuating energy to achieve what I want to do?
Even if you do not have a disability, there are always bad days, these tips can help. Here are my personal rules and tips I give myself to be able to maintain my basic needs (including my deaf and chronic pains needs) and do the projects I want.
Give Yourself Grace
My chronic pain flare-ups can be unpredictable. While there are some signals to warn me, there could be many factors on why I may not get them. If I have to pause, take a step back, and give myself the rest to recover, I should because then I can come back stronger much quicker than if I push through the pain. Give yourself grace when you set a boundary to help yourself, you will bounce back soon
Have different structures for different energy levels
Have different expectations depending on where your energy levels are at. You will be less disappointed in yourself because your expectations are different when it is your normal energy level compared to your worst day. Here are my three structures,
Maintenance Mode: This is my regular day-to-day life when medication does the job and I can get through my day with all my priorities without too much struggle. I do my normal planning routine and I tend to have different priorities balancing the need for pain management and relaxation with the 8 aspects of my life.
Flare-up Mode: This is my worst. This is when getting out of bed is literally my only task I care about. If that task gets a checkmark, this day is a success. Everything else I managed to do is impressive. My planning routine is determining that one extra priority for the day plus having to do additional pain management and rest to get into recovery mode. If I have been paying attention to my pain signals and keeping up with pain management, then this only lasts a day or two. If I was not paying attention (like me pre-pandemic), this can last somewhere between a week to a month.
Recovery Mode: This is after the flare-up mode where I can start adding my other priorities back on my to-do list. Some days are better than others so flexibility is a requirement. I get back into my planning routine but I expect to reprioritize throughout the day based on my energy level. Many reflections take place during this mode so that I can get back into maintenance mode.
A place where all of your tasks, reminders, and trackers are
Whether it is analog or digital, have a place where you keep the information out of your head because you are never going to remember them. As energy levels impact focus, having a place where you can immediately input the information means your future self will thank you. It is crucial if you have a disability, because of two major reasons,
You will most likely have to shift or cancel tasks and activities due to your disability impacting your energy level. Knowing what is on your list now and when you are able to come back to it is important.
Tracking activities or habits that are important to your well-being so you can determine what can make your optimal day and what may be triggers to your energy levels. Here are some of the activities I track
Sleep
Mood
Water
How long I wore my Cochlear Implant
Pain level
Whether I use any of my pain management techniques
Period/menstrual cycle (because I have a uterus and it apparently affects both my hearing and my pain levels)
I use Notion to keep all my goals, tasks, and trackers and I set it up to interact with each other so it is the least amount of effort on my low energy days. I also use Google Calendar to plan out my week so that I am not overloading my to-do list.
Learning This Important Lesson
To be honest, I did not learn this quickly. I learned this harshly. I used to constantly be in flare-up mode and recovery mode. Maintenance mode used to be a dream.
The pandemic is what allowed me to understand and set the boundaries I needed. I was in constant flare-ups and recovering modes pre-pandemic not knowing my pain signals. All while doing full-times studies, part-time work, volunteer work, and some social life. As the pandemic forced all of us to slow down a little, I took the opportunity to learn my pain signals which allow me to manage the pain better and deal with it before it goes too far.
Including those boundaries and listening to my pain signals means that when things started opening up again, I was doing full-time studies for my last year in university, two part-time jobs, volunteer work, plus, I had dedicated time for family, friends, and hobbies for relaxation. I finally found maintenance mode and figured out how to extend it so that the flare-up modes and recovery modes can happen less often.
Now I have a full time job, two volunteer opportunities that take quite a bit of time, doing Amanda Listens, and still have dedicated time for family, friends, and hobbies for relaxation. I still have flare-ups but they are less frequent and lead to shorter recovery time because I learn my pain signals and set those boundaries.
It is not easy, I can’t always do these priorities to the full capacity I would love to do everyday. But I use my systems to make sure that I am making myself happy about what I am doing and contributing to while also making sure that I take care of myself.
I could do more, I could do less, but productivity is a deeply personal definition based on lifestyle and goals. I feel pretty productive, even on the days when my only goal is to get out of bed.
Has your definition of productivity changed for the better for you?
Amanda