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Why Are You Obsessed With Productivity?

Because college essay season has already started, I am constantly thinking about basic questions like "Who am I?" and "What makes me me?" I believe that a defining trait that I have is my obsession with productivity. I think that my interest in productivity and self-improvement started quite early when I was 13 years old. I consider this early because when I was in middle school, I had an ample amount of free time to do what I wanted to do. Despite having this amount of free time, I felt that sometimes I wasn't spending it wisely. In middle school, I would scroll Google Plus, watch random videos on YouTube, and look at Instagram pages of my classmates that I barely knew. 

This mediocre lifestyle didn't really satisfy me. I was easily distracted by my computer and phone, constantly multitasked when I did homework, and couldn't practice piano properly. In other words, my mind was scattered and all over the place. At that time, I was more concerned with doing better at school so I started watching  a couple of YouTube videos that focused on academic success. Then, my YouTube recommendations started to introduce other videos that talked about time management and productivity. Clearly, they would address some of my personal challenges and I am happy that I watched them. Over time, my YouTube habit became a pursuit that was driven by my curiosity to learn more about how to improve my life. My passion did not fit the cheesy advice of "finding your passion." Instead, it started out as trying out something new and then cultivating that interest in the long run. 

What made me enjoy watching these videos is that some of them seriously challenged my beliefs that I assumed were right. For instance, one of the most impactful YouTube videos in my life was this TEDx talk that Cal Newport gave on why you should quit social media. At that time, I was 12 years old and like most middle schoolers, I thought having social media was cool and necessary. But Cal Newport disproved it. By knowing this at an early age, I was more skeptical of the benefits of social media. In middle school, the main YouTuber I watched when it came to productivity was Thomas Frank (College Info Geek). Because of the videos, I started to learn about other influential figures in the field of productivity and productivity books he read that I wanted to learn more about. 

In 9th grade, I started to read productivity books, which expanded my world of productivity because I was no longer restricted to videos. The earliest productivity book I read was Deep Work by Cal Newport and it made me question some of the ways I worked. Not only did I learn various ways to work deeply, but the book taught me that there is no end to achieving full productivity. It is like a craft that you perfect and tinker with every day. What makes me find productivity satisfying is seeing the impact it has on my life. By madly annotating these productivity books and reading them over and over again, I keep reminding myself that one of my main personal goals in life is to live a deep life that requires contemplation, focus, and digital minimalism. I find these books comforting when I have struggles because they are like how to guides. 

Although I haven't read any recent books about productivity, my interest hasn't waned because the online community on Cal Newport's blog is a lovely place for me to know other readers like me that care about this topic a lot. 

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