What is performative productivity as a business owner in the workplace? Have you ever heard of performative productivity? Performative productivity is an example of toxic productivity hustle culture! Let’s get into it — because performative productivity reared its head at me earlier this year…
(This article originally appeared as the August 24, 2024 edition of the Solopreneur Diary Entries weekly newsletter)
Quick backstory: My solopreneur business model is designed so that I do solopreneur coaching and personal fulfillment coaching call sessions during just two offset weeks of the month (on Tuesdays - Thursdays), and the other weeks of the month are for more behind-the-scenes tasks or book writing or taking time off work etc.
Lately, rather than focusing primarily on writing my novels during those non-coaching weeks, I’ve found myself focusing a lot more on preparing for upcoming burlesque performances (one of my favourite hobbies!). It takes a lot of time and creativity to design choreography, rhinestone costumes, etc.
And here’s where performative productivity comes into it: Earlier this year, I absolutely had a moment where I thought to myself, “I should be writing my books faster, because as an Anti-hustle Productivity Strategist and solopreneur business owner, efficiency is my whole *thing*.”
Ooooooof.
Wow.
THAT right there: THAT is performative productivity.
The second that the thought popped into my head, I took a step back, analyzed that thought and the associated feelings, did some quick self coaching on it, and shifted out of that mentality.
Because I am NOT efficient for performative reasons.
That’s not why I do it!
I don’t do anything in my solopreneur business or in my personal life to “prove” how productive and efficient I am.
I simply embody the Productivity Powerhouse anti-hustle framework so that I can prioritize my fun hobbies and enjoy my work in every aspect and be personally fulfilled while producing high-quality work — and as such, being able to share that with you and show you how it comes together is a natural extension of it, but the *showing it to you* is NOT *the thing itself.*
Writing my books faster because I’m in the creative zone, excited about the story and the writing, working on a hard deadline, etc, are all GOOD reasons to do it.
Writing my books faster “because I’m supposed to be efficient and productive” is NOT a good reason to do it — it’s simply performative productivity at work.
I’m sharing this with you today because I don’t think we’ve really discussed this side of it before, but…
Performative productivity is another way that toxic productivity hustle culture sneaks in.
It’s insidious — especially if you spend a lot of time on social media as a solopreneur business owner, or if you are particularly dependent on external validation in your personal life, for example.
How do you KNOW if you’re getting sidetracked by performative productivity? Here are 3 questions to do a little check-in…
- If no one knew that you were doing XYZ, would you still want to do it? (E.g. “I need to prove something about myself to that person over there.”)
- If you feel guilt/shame/judgment about NOT doing a thing, what are the thoughts that come up for you? (E.g. “I should be doing this because *what does it say about me and my identity* if I don’t?”)
- If you were to do this thing WITHOUT an “audience” (of your peers, social media followers, clients and customers, mentors and teachers, friends and family, etc), how would that CHANGE the way in which you do this thing? (E.g. “I need to do this in that way because people are expecting it from me or I’m worried what they’ll think of me.”)
Recognizing performative productivity is one thing; overcoming it is another!
But it always begins with that identification piece, first. You can’t deal with it unless you know it’s happening ♥
By the way… This can be a really interesting thought exercise to explore in a variety of areas of your life or solopreneur business:
For instance, do you feel pressured to perform productivity for certain things but not other things, or around certain people but not others? That can then indicate what requires deeper exploration.
Overcoming toxic productivity hustle culture AND the adjacent performative productivity aspect of it — so you can instead truly embrace and embody anti-hustle methods — is what you learn how to do in Productivity Powerhouse:
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It originally appeared as the August 24, 2024 edition of the Solopreneur Diary Entries weekly newsletter.
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