Why You Can’t Stop Your Productivity Addiction - Oliver Burkeman - #1061

Is it possible to be the best in the world and relaxed at the same time? Um, the best in the world? I don't know. I um I what I do think is that it is very possible to be really, really good at what you do and relaxed. And actually, my experience is that

The more relaxed I can be, the better I am at things. I'm not going to claim to be the best in the world at anything. But I I think that notion that you've either got to choose a relaxing life or a an accomplished one, this is I this is the thing I'm on a mission, very personally motivated mission to prove is not uh not how it works. I think there's a tension between having high standards, which is hypervigilance and obsession and focus and really paying attention to stuff, and that just tends to bleed into the personality and the ambient anxiety.

And I can see, for instance, if you were to say, um, Is it possible to be the best in the world and never relax at the same time? That question would seem pretty obvious to answer. Yes, of course, because the exact same level of resolution that you're obsessing over your pursuit with is the thing that kind of destroys the rest of your life. The interesting question is to work out whether you can kind of be on and off or if you can hold things a little bit more loosely whilst still getting the right level of output you want.

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