Toxic Productivity: Why You’re Busy But Still Failing

If you enjoyed episode 1 of the podcast, and have chosen to stick around this weeks episode is all about the struggle we all go through when balancing productivity 

This week you can look forward to learning more about the productivity paradox, hear more about how it has taken me 30 years to master the perfect morning routine and 4 tips for boosting your productivity so you can spend more time doing what you want to want.

It would mean the world to me if you join me on this journey and hit that subscribe button wherever you choose to tune in.

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00:00 Intro 
01:29 Perfect Monday Morning
03:22 Toxic Productivity 3?
07:10 Pseudo Productivity 
09:53 Signs of Toxic Productivity 
17:40 Information Overload 
20:57 Productivity Debt 
23:53 Productivity Paradox 
27:33 Minimalism 
28:27 4 Tips to Boost Productivity
34:12 Procrastination & Perfectionism
37:30 My Thoughts on Hormozi 
40:20 How to Detach Identity from Outcomes 
45:00 Are You Really Lazy?
50:00 Purpose Vs Pleasure    
 


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Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Unhinged Curiosity with your host Benji Haldon. Hopefully you guys enjoyed episode one of the solo podcast last week on the 10 life lessons or the 9.5 life lessons I've learned in 2025 or the past 12 months. And again, if you guys have any questions, what I probably will do is I will open up an email inbox and I think there is ways you can do it on YouTube and Spotify where you're listening where you can drop questions because

I'd really like to record an episode based on some of the questions that you guys have got, I know I've had quite a few on Instagram as well. But I really, really do appreciate you guys listening and tuning in wherever you are listening. So please, if you can subscribe to the channel, it will really help me in the future of the podcast to eventually pull some guests in, which will be the basis of the future. But I'm really leaning into this solo journey at the moment. I think I spoke last week a lot about the difference between being alone and being lonely and

I think one of the beautiful things about being alone is that you really learn to live with yourself so you're never really alone because you enjoy your own company. And I guess that's part of the podcast. This podcast is probably going to be very selfish. It's going to be me exploring this journey of the, the, the bounds between self development and self content. And that's what this week's episode is, is pretty much leaning into its toxic productivity.

And I want to tell you guys first, I had the best Monday morning of my life. It's only taken me 30 years to distinguish what the perfect Monday morning is, but it consisted of my morning routine, which is pretty much at the moment in Australia. I find it really easy to get up at 5 a.m. just because I switched my body clock to that as soon as I got here. So in the UK, don't worry, that's not the gold standard. It's usually a little bit later than that, but I find it easier. I get up, I'll read for 20, 30 minutes. I've been having a coffee and a piece of toast.

Going back to the old school days, just because I needed to have something to eat nice and early, my appetite just kicks off straight away. And then I'll usually see the guys, I'll train with my two housemates, there's a bit of a community element there, as well as an endorphin release. And then I'll fuel, so I'll have some oats and stuff. I'll then went and worked somewhere else called the lobby in Australia on the Gold Coast, which is a beautiful place to work. It's really minimal, so there's less distractions. It really leans into that essentialism vibes.

Ben Haldon (02:25.603)
came back, had something to eat, did another little work block. And then in the afternoon, I did a run a sauna. It's a beautiful day and it cost me nothing. And that was one of the best things about it. Well, it cost me nothing but a coffee, which in Australia, the coffee is off. Chef's kiss. So yeah, that was one of more productive days and it wasn't a day where it was full of grind, grind, grind, task after task after task. And that's one of the things that I really want to get.

understand this and what you guys understand is that productivity isn't about maximum input. It's about the best output that you can get. And that means that some days you're to have to put things in there or you need to find a balance where you can put things in there to fill your own cup because you can't really serve from a place of where the batteries are low. It needs to be a place of where you're going to enjoy it. It's going to be sustainable and it's going to be things in there which are almost like lubricant to the rest of the day so you can get more tasks done.

So, do I think this sort of thing is toxic productivity?

I guess it's probably sit on the fence. Yes or no. I, to be honest, I don't think there's any such thing as toxic anything. There's this, think I mentioned in last week's episode that I don't believe there's anything as toxic masculinity. think it's toxic men and toxic women. and they don't, they don't define a whole movement. So I did write down the definition of productivity just so we could have some basis to start from. And then I'll give you what my belief is. So.

At its core productivity is a measure of how effectively you turn inputs, i.e. your time, your energy, your resources into meaningful outputs, results, work done, achieved. But my belief is a little bit different. My belief is that good productivity equals maximum useful output and minimum wasted input. Productivity isn't about doing more stuff. It's about doing the right stuff well.

Ben Haldon (04:24.547)
And this is what I was alluding to before, which is why I told you what my day was like on Monday. And there's some people that may think, you haven't actually got huge blocks of work done there. I have essentially three work blocks in a day and I try and have at least two different environments to do those work blocks in. know that now we've moved into this era where people are working at home or they're doing things digitally or they work online. You're going to be working at home a lot, but one of the best things I can give you or piece of advice I can give you is trying outside, get to a coffee shop, get yourself a cup of coffee.

Be around different people like I saying on last week's episode. Have those micro conversations, engage with people because it's very easy to isolate yourself when you're only working at home. It's important to get out, change the environment, change the stimulus, have something different. Maybe have some quieter places, some busier places, depending on whether you're looking to lock in and crunch numbers and type up things or type up notes or whether you're looking to be creative. I it does make a difference of what your environment pulls into you and how it makes you feel. So.

That's a big thing because I think one of the things I also want to talk about is how is productivity measured? So for example, way back when, probably my mom and dad's day, productivity would be based in the workplace or in a factory and it would be, know, how many things got produced per hour. And that was maybe, that was results driven. That's what your productivity was based on. But now that we're not based in a factory, we're not a

you know, physical laborer worker, we're a knowledge worker essentially, and we're in this digital era of being online. It's how valuable, how the valuable work gets done is the big marker in the metric, which means some days you might have to work really, really, really, really long days to create value. And some days you can work an hour today. I haven't done a lot of work because the day before I did a lot, I did a lot of the base work, which means I can have a day where it's a little bit more creative. It's a little bit more, you know, hands off.

It's a little bit more recording things, and it's a little bit more, a little bit less Slack and emails. So that's how I guess, I view productivity change in and has changed over the past 10, 20 years because

Ben Haldon (06:40.698)
The landscape of how work and different fields work and what the results and what the purpose is, is also changing and can be meaningful in different ways. And I think it's very easy to get caught up in your email inbox of over typing things instead of being creative and doing the creative work. It's, you know, typing up the notes instead of having those awkward conversations. It's making a new to-do list before you've even done the current to-do list. And that's the way that we can get caught in a cycle of productivity that essentially

get us nowhere and this is what we call pseudo productivity. So pseudo productivity is essentially the sneaky killer of productivity. It's the type of productivity that nobody wants.

It's a type of productivity where you feel and look busy instead of actually being busy or actually producing meaningful, valuable work. It's those things of doing the small things that make you feel like you're doing things or being really reactive to email. So you're in the middle of doing a task and email comes through. You'll quickly jump away from that task that you really didn't want to do to answer the email and spend hours doing tasks and feeling accomplished in the moment.

but gets you, moves the needle no further forward. I'm sure if you think about it, all have those days where we're just ticking boxes, but is it actually doing anything meaningful? think that's why it's important sometimes to have your goals. I have my, what do call it, a vision board on my laptop background. I actually went through it the other day and I probably ticked off 50 to 60 % of the stuff that's on my vision board, which is a rarity for me because sometimes I forget about them. They come a bit hippy dippy, but due to the fact, you know, we're just in July, getting to halfway through the year, I know it's scary.

over halfway through the year it's nice that I've actually got a few things done.

Ben Haldon (08:27.736)
Why is it important to notice when maybe we're leaning into pseudo productivity? It's probably because pseudo productivity can actually feel good. this type of productivity can make you feel like you've done things, but

have you really? That's the question you need to ask because we get these dopamine hits from pseudo productivity that make us feel like we were useful, we're doing things, we've got jobs done, we're crossing things off the task list and it feels easy but it's really shallow. The tasks are really shallow because you're avoiding the deep uncomfortable work. Like if anyone's read the book about swallow the frog, it's about doing the difficult tasks first. I sometimes get, I guess, conflict with this because

I've heard Hooman talk before, make valid points about doing easy tasks first to build momentum before you get into the big things. And some people like to the big things out the way early. So then they have the more creative things to do later on. I am one of those people, but everybody's different. I think there's any wrong or right about it, but I guess the the end point on pseudo productivity to know if you're doing it or don't want to do it. It's just think busy, busy, but not better. That's what it is. We want to be better, not busy. So I think if you can focus on

As usual quality of a quantity, you should be on the right track. So how do we, how do we look for signs in our day that we're maybe leaning into toxic productivity? Because I think it's very easy when you get into workflows of ticking boxes and doing things, especially if you've got a boss, you need to please people of just mindless work completion without any real purpose. And this is one of the big things I've, um,

Really looking into the moment is like, what is my purpose? What is your purpose? If you have to stop the podcast now and think about what your purpose is, what would it be? What's the big overarching looming goal that is driving your work? Or is it doing the things that you need to do? And it doesn't even matter if you're in a work position where maybe it's not the end goal, it's not the outcome, but you're doing something because you need to learn and go through the process. Like if you're doing something that you don't enjoy, it might as well be painful and you learn something from it, which is one of the things I picked up this week. So signs of toxic po-

Ben Haldon (10:37.81)
productivity would be an obsession with self improvement above anything else. I think that's one of the things that I have spoken about on the whole underlying theme of this podcast is self-development and being content. So it's the obsession with self-development this can be a difficult thing when I'm going to touch on the productivity paradox, which is something that I've been thinking about, I've been speaking to my housemates about this week.

Cause you, I sometimes fall into that class where I'm like, you know, it doesn't matter how productive I am. I always feel like sometimes I can be doing more. And when you get into that notion, it's easy to continue to pick up the laptop or pick up the phone or pick up the notebook or send the email and continue to do the thing because we're in this hustle culture of do more, more, more, more, more. But when do you ever really switch off? And again, that comes down to the, the working at home theme. There's no real nine to five. I think even if you want to do well on a job anymore, you can't.

just realistically do the nine to five. You've got to do extra, you've got to the extra mile, especially if you want to work up the ladder, so to speak, or improve your own business. And that's where it can become dangerous because there's no real parameters around work. You need to set them for yourself. I've just been having this conversation, I'll walk you through this evening about, especially if you're around people who are productive and I'm in a really lucky environment at the moment where I'm working around people who are on a similar mission. But the danger of that is that we all

get locked in, we continue to push, push, push, push, push. And even when the other person takes a break, you feel that almost a level of guilt, I suppose, that you're not doing something to push forward because you can always be pushing forward. I think the other one which I have been at the brunt of is working on something to the extent where it harms your friendships and it harms your relationships.

And that's the point where you really, really need to ask yourself the question, am I sacrificing the thing I do to make me happy versus sacrificing the thing that makes you happy full stop? And that should never be the case.

Ben Haldon (12:49.618)
because you can always bypass the product of happiness and just be happy and just spend time with your partner or just spend time with your friend. And unfortunately, I went through that space of where I was so drilled into being successful and performing and measuring metrics that I forgot about the most important things. But luckily enough, I've realized that at this phase in life, and like I said before, if you're to go through something painful, you might as learn something from it.

So that's what I'm trying to do at the moment. that's, I guess, part of the big part of what I've been speaking about with the podcast is leaning into learning and the self-development and being a better version of my prior self. And hopefully with some of these lessons that I've been through, you can take away to cheat code to, it's it's a kick up the arse to not go through the same things. So one of the other signs is relentless and unrealistic expectations. So I think one of the big.

What you call it? The big shifts in the way that we feel happens when expectations meet reality or the other way around. And sometimes our expectations of what we need to do to get what we want is very, different. I think a lot of people could really just do with doing the basic things a million times over and over and over again and seeing what results you get.

And that's the, I guess, the biggest pin in underlying things of productivity is the people who are successful just do the absolute basic really, really well over and over and over again. You can't account for, you know, viralism and things that just pop off. It's, you can't catch that. It's like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. It just doesn't happen. The other thing is, guess it's sometimes difficult to rest and relax when you are

toxically productive.

Ben Haldon (14:52.818)
which is why I really like the idea of unactionable spaces, which is again, what I was speaking about last week. It's having those spaces where you can't do work, there's no stimulus, there's nothing going in your ears, there's nothing that you consume on virus screen. And there's nothing speaking to you. You're not doing anything super strenuous. Your central nervous system's at ease, you're calm, you've got control of your breath. You have time to think your own thoughts rather than be given thoughts by something else.

And that's something that I think in this day and age with everyone trying to grab our attention, we don't often get a chance to do, which is why I really like the sauna. can't take a phone in the sauna. Well, I can't, but I'm just going to break my phone and be a dumbass. So having spaces where you really get to rest and you come away from the feeling recharged. Because I guess what, when we're self developing, we're increasing the capacity of the battery, i.e. your brain. And we can do that over and over and over again, but we can only really utilize that battery when it's fully charged.

If you're never fully charged, that knowledge is going to be really affected by focus and memory. So that's where sleep recovery and rest is going to be important and why it's important to notice these signs if you're overdoing things because

One of the things, and I think it's a cultural problem, is that it's the need to show up and be seen or you'll be forgotten. I guess it's like the hedonic treadmill where you're going over and over over over over again. And you're trying to keep up with the rat race. But the only person who's really at the rat race is you. Because nobody cares as much as you do. Nobody creates the problem. Nobody makes the problem as big as it is apart from you. Because it only exists as a problem in your head.

Nobody else gives a shit about it. That's the first thing to remember. But if you need to try and show up or you think you'll be forgotten or you need to try and keep up with the jokers, then you run a sure fire away to shitville.

Ben Haldon (16:46.074)
I know it's difficult not to compare. spoke about this last week again, but if you can try and remove that societal programming, that everything's a competition or you need the new thing or you need to keep up with whoever or have the same thing or have a better model, whatever it is, you're constantly going to be chasing, constantly going to be trying to keep up. And sometimes you realize that when you actually get the thing, you didn't need the thing, you just needed the process to get there. You needed something to do. You needed something to focus on. You needed something to test, to challenge you along the process because

It's getting the thing never feels as good as, sorry, having a thing never feels as good as getting the thing. So just some signs to try and remember around toxic productivity. So I guess productivity comes, mine has over the years, the things that have helped me with productivity are to be books, media, information, education. But like what are people doing with that?

Ben Haldon (17:47.351)
I sometimes end up reading and consuming. guess we all do this more and more and more, which is why I don't really like to listen to more than two or three different podcasts or read tons of different books. I remember listening to a podcast by, or remember it was just a clip by Jay Shetty. And I think he said he'd read a book every single day, which is garbage. No one reads a book every single day. I think he massively took that out of context that he'd read a bit of a book each day. And this other thing is people turn bookshelves.

into mental masturbation. I would much rather see five books on someone's bookshelf. I've read the same book, Essentialism, three times. I think you're better to read the same book, is adds value to your life, is relative to you, and you can take things from over and over again. So those things that you need to know compound and you can action them rather than have a shit ton of information, which you mentally masturbate over and end up doing nothing with. So don't get into the thing of consuming more and doing less is my main thing with

With that, I always think one of the best things that you can do is have experience. So more important than research is me-search. So going out and doing the thing, fucking the thing up, getting the thing wrong, testing the social media posts or testing the work or seeing how you get on with this person or seeing how that day goes or seeing how this relationship is or seeing how this alters the friendship.

And testing different means and ways in life and gathering information from that and seeing what does and doesn't work for you. It's great reading about things, but it's not the same as doing the thing. And if you constantly just research and on reading stuff and never actually action it, what's the point in the end anyway? You need to take some physical action. need to feel nervous and comfortable. And this is why I was having a conversation with my flatmate, yesterday. And I think I hit him like a ton of bricks when I said, done is better than perfect.

because sometimes just getting out and doing the thing and getting the feedback from it is much more valuable because then you can take that into whatever you're producing next rather than just continue to kind of shy away from it and dip your toes in the water a little bit with it. And that's the places where I think a lot of people can get caught up with with this self-development journey is constantly sitting behind the laptop or behind the book or behind the camera and never actually getting out and doing shit. So just to remember maybe this week, you're going over things and thinking it could be a little

Ben Haldon (20:12.438)
I need to a little bit more research before you do that. Just lean in and do it. This is your sign. Just do the fucking thing and I promise you, you'll feel better for it.

Ben Haldon (20:25.206)
Certainly I'm currently drinking Remedy Kombucha, just for anyone who's not watching on video. I'm a addicted to these at the moment, the passion fruit flavor. think since I kind of went away from energy drinks and monsters, which I still have every now and again, I needed something to really hit the spot. Now this isn't a payday, I just really enjoy these kombuchas and passion fruit is a bit of sexy passion of mine. But one, I was listening to, one of the three podcasts I do listen to is my friend Chris Williamson and

One of the things that he was discussing, I think on a clip that I saw recently was the idea of productivity debt. So productivity debt in the sense that he was talking about it is that you can wake up in the morning and straight away you feel like you're in the red. And in order for you to get to the green, you feel like you must complete a sequence of tasks first to be able to earn the right to be in the green. And I thought it was a really interesting concept because I do feel like that sometimes.

I feel like until I've done such and such and such a piece of work, I haven't earned the right to enjoy myself. I haven't earned the right to wake up and enjoy my day, which is a crazy feeling because you should feel content. And that's the way I think with my morning routine, I did some breath work this morning. There's different ways that you can make you feel good about yourself, which aren't just turning on the laptop and just instantly drilling into emails. I think your brain is like mushing the morning. You need to do something. You need to sharpen the pencil in order to be able to map.

out the rest of the day or you need to put yourself through the washer metaphorically with some kind of routine that's going to make you harden to things before you open up the social media drive because you're going to open up at some point but it's better for you to wear certain I guess suit of armor to protect yourself before you go diving in there butt naked and these things that pop up on your screen that make you feel worse then immediately you're into the start of the day feeling anxious or breathless or comparing or having some kind of negative thought before you've even got into the rest of your day.

So I thought that was a really interesting point. I think probably more of us than we really care to understand growth through this point, not just with productivity, but in general, we, think a lot of people and I've definitely been there over the past couple of months will wake up in the red instead of the green. And it takes me a while to be able to get into the rest of my day. Cause I feel like I've got to earn or I feel like I need to do certain few things because I've woke up anxious or unhappy. And that's not, that's not a nice place to be, especially when you woke up first thing in the morning. No, nobody should feel like that.

Ben Haldon (22:50.134)
But all ways that you can feel better, but it comes from action. It comes from putting something together. It's going to make you feel better in the morning. You need to lean into those things. And like I said before, leaning into the physical, doing the walk, doing the workout, doing the run is far better than just sitting around trying to think you're out of a situation. But this then made me think about, I was thinking about this when I was on the bike the other day. I was on the Zwift bike and I was thinking about my notes for a podcast of productivity.

Whilst riding my Zwift bike was watching an educational video. Whilst having my voice note, voice memo up on my phone to voice memo my thoughts into the recorder to then take it out and plug it into chat GBT so it produced some notes for me. So, I mean, it was definitely the ultimate productivity hack and proof that males can multitask. But it was definitely one of those signs that I just need to ride my bike and just forget about other things.

But some of the things I plugged in from my voice notes was this thing called the productivity paradox. So it's a bit of a twist I think nobody talks about. And what my voice members were basically getting at is that the better that you get at being productive, the more work you attract. When you're good at getting things done, people notice you deliver fast and you deliver well. So what happens? You get more projects, more responsibilities, more requests.

more quick favors and more everything. Congrats, you're efficient, but now you're drowning. And this is the thing that people don't think about when we get more productive because we have this feedback leap of we've done something productive, now we feel good about it. Now we've got the reward and now you'll notice this is at this more reliable, more efficient person where you're going to get attract more work or more opportunities. And this is where you've got to really be careful because you can then swallow up more and more work.

and it becomes this endless, endless task. So I guess why does this happen? Because people want to good people work. You've done well with something, so you're to get bombarded with more stuff, or you give yourself more work to do. And this is where you've to be careful because I think when it comes to doing more work, you're going to have more opportunities as you become more successful. And I think that you, when it comes to work, you've got to this plate.

Ben Haldon (25:14.39)
Imagine we've got this metaphor metaphorical plate of like, you know, plate of food. I hope most people eat off plates. You have this plate and there's only, you've already got a shit ton of work on it. You should be only pulling things onto your plate, pulling things in, gravitating things towards you. And it's got to be a decision that's made by you. It can't be pushed onto your plate by somebody else. Cause then you're taking on work that potentially isn't meaningful to you and doesn't, doesn't sit with your purpose. And of course it's going to be things that you don't want to do sometimes. I'm not saying that every task.

You've got to be like, 10 out 10 movies, can't wait to do this. That's not how it's going to feel, but you've got to be careful of the push pull. You need to pull that work onto your plate, not for it to be pushed on. It's something to think about because there's going to be a never ending stream of tasks that will need to be done otherwise. And this is then, I then spoke about how there's real life examples about this. So the reason I got into this was because I was actually thinking about high rocks or fitness in general is because, you know, people

as they're training for high rocks, they lose weight, they feel better, they look more shorter, they look leaner. You then are becoming fitter and healthier and you're going to do a race and you you've gone with your mate to do doubles and now your times, you've shaved two minutes off your sim or your last race. And then because you've got better and you've got that positive feedback that you feel better in yourself, so you want to do more training. So you book more races or you do more challenges until you get burned out or until you get injured.

And then you start to waste your time because you're getting no better because you're just plowing and you're hitting that same same hammer against the wall. The nails going no deeper in. And that's where we tend to bear now and where you've got to realize that sometimes you need to rest and recover to be able to really sharpen that battery or sorry, be able to charge that battery that you've been building in training or building self-development. And that's a really nice analogy. And it's a really nice way that I like to try and think about is that whenever you're building self-development or if you're building fitness space, building the battery bigger.

But you can only empty the battery of how much the battery is charged based on how much you've been able to rest and recover. just something to think about. And think the way that you probably do that with your workload is you have to set boundaries systems and say no. And this is what I was talking last week with minimalism, essentialism. You need to learn to say no. More we find it difficult to say no because

Ben Haldon (27:38.134)
This is one of the things again, leading back into my psychology days is that we find it difficult to say no, because one, we want to be part of the in-group. We want to be part of the people. We want to feel good. We want to be part of the hierarchy of social ladder. And this dates back to, if you weren't part of the in-group or if you weren't part of the tribe, you got kicked out of the tribe, you'd essentially die. So we became a species that would conform very easily to the social, sorry, to the dynamic of the group.

So I guess that's why we really struggled to say no, because we want to fit in. We don't want to be the outlier. We don't want to be the person that people turn on. So it can become difficult to say no, but that's why that book for me was really, really good. But I really wanted to give you some value today as well. I've also made notes on four tips to boost your productivity. And these are different techniques and strategies that I've used some of them myself and some of them I know that other people have used and found them productive.

Ben Haldon (28:37.628)
So the first one is called, I'll probably butcher this name, so bear with me people. The Pomodoro Technique. Imagine working in focus best with short breaks in between. Set a time for 25 minutes, work diligently on a task, and then reward yourself with a five minute break. So this is basic behaviorism again. You're doing a set habit or behavior, you're reinforcing the habit or the behavior with positive reinforcement, i.e. a reward, and then you're going to do it more and more. So you complete those short

blocks and methods for me, 25 minutes is a little bit short. I really can't get enough stuff done in that time and settle to then take a five minute break. And it's just too frequently to break. I like, like I said, breaking up into bigger chunks and being in different environments. that, technique doesn't work for me, but especially someone who has lower tension or even probably like ADHD, this might be a good way to work just because they're really short blocks. don't have to hold that tension span for big periods of time.

And then you get those rewards for it, which you're going to just create those good habits around workflow. Uh, the second one is prioritization and the Eindhoven matrix. So this is basically the premise that all tasks are not created equal. That's one of the big things I want you to take away from today is the prioritization of tasks. So you need to take, take a moment in your day that when you wrote this task task list up, which are the tasks that are really going to move the needle forward? So like we were talking about before is swallowing the frog in the morning.

which tasks are really going to move that needle forward and which tasks are really going to make the difference. And that's where we can get this prioritization of a task list. And we start to go with the tasks that are most important. So it becomes like a quadrant system of distinction, most urgent all the way through to the lowest priority activities. And again, this comes down to little leans back into what we've just been talking about with essentialism. You're probably going to hear me bang on about that book a lot just because I

Really?

Ben Haldon (30:40.667)
really have taken so much from this book. It's had such a big impact on every part of my life, not just with productivity, more so just my life. So one of my favorite quotes, one of the things I really enjoyed, which leans into this, the discipline of pursuit of less essentially, is Greg McEwen says that essentialism is not about how to get more things done. It's about how to get the right things done. It doesn't mean just doing less for the sake of doing less either.

It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. Like I can't remember the amount of times I've just fucked about or played around with music or pissed around. I've got stupid things done or bouncing back and forth from WhatsApp, Slack, emails. And then by the time I know an hour has gone past, I'm like, because I've got way more done there.

Which then brings me on to time blocking. when I was living back in the UK, I haven't brought it here with me. I did have a little timer, a time block, a user being sort of 40 minute blocks. So longer than 25 minute block. I would always tend to get the work that I need to get in the 40 minutes. However, I think I mentioned to you last week, I've also bought something called a brick. So this thing called brick, again, it's not endorsement of the podcast. It's a little gray block. It's sitting on my bed, but I'll leave it there. I haven't got arms, like stretch your arms strong. It's a little block and like you would do when you go to path.

to pay, you know, a coffee shop where you usually contact less and you go ding. You do the same with your phone, you double tap, you put it on the gray little brick. And the point is that you leave this little gray book, somewhere out of sight or in a different room. And when you tap it, takes all the social apps off your phone. So you then can't go endlessly scrolling. Like my big thing is watching honey badgers fight everything in the animal kingdom. It's like, it's my thing. It's my thing. Let me be. And I ended up just doom scrolling for hours of watching honey badgers. So

The time block allows me to set a parameter. I'm going to this done by this time. Then I'm going to do something nice with my time. And the brick allows me to take away the common distractions, which for me is social media. And as you become more and more successful, it's not about thinking what else do you need to do or what more do you need to do. It's about what distractions you need to eliminate from your life. If you think about that, you'll probably be able to progress quite a lot with the things that you're doing. And the final prompt or tip

Ben Haldon (32:59.995)
in the four tip sequence is single task invested in multitasking. Now this is obviously super straightforward stuff, know, contrary to popular belief, know, multitasking can hinder productivity and you end up becoming a jack of all trades. And I think this is the thing with what I've about before, while being on the bike, I actually should have just been at one with being on the bike instead of pissing around doing more notes for the podcast and just sitting on the bike. But at the same time, I actually quite enjoyed it. It made me learn a few bits.

I shouldn't do it every time I jump on the bike because then I'm going to associate the bike that I actually enjoy doing, riding the pony, having a saddle up my ass 24 seven with work. And that's not what I want to do. And this is what happens when people work at home. Everything that happens in the same room, you do your emails, you do the cooking, you watch TV, you have conversations with your partner and everything, just the boundaries get crossed. So it's important that you do hold some boundary with this as well.

One of the biggest things that we haven't even touched upon is what happens as a part of productivity is procrastination.

Ben Haldon (34:07.803)
because you want to get things done, but you don't do the things you need to do to get there. So I think one of the biggest forms for most people when it comes to procrastination, and again, this is why I said to Oli this week that done is better than perfect is that we sometimes lean into perfectionism as a form of procrastination and

I think what often happens is that people wear perfectionism like a badge of honor, like a gold medal. Like it's something to be proud of. And it protects ourselves. It protects our ego. It protects us from putting ourselves out there because if more people just continue to show up and did the cringey thing, they'd have more success. Success often just lies on the other side of cringe. And if you just showed up and put more videos out there and just continue to do the thing or record the thing or

show up to the place on your own or go to something uninvited or ask the uncomfortable question, you will probably have more success, but we don't because we want to protect our perfect ego.

Ben Haldon (35:10.999)
So procrastination, I'm not going to touch on that too much. I think a lot of people know the perfectionist and a lot more people could do with taking more imperfect action. But I want to also talk about social media because I know that's a big theme again within this and it's something that I do a lot of work on this. So this is why social media can become such a big thing within productivity. don't get me wrong, I love social media. It's just a great thing for me. It's meant that I've met so many people.

It's obviously been the basis of my career, but, you know, I don't want to be on social media for the rest of my life. actually, as a form of content creation, enjoy doing the podcast above everything else. I enjoy long form. I enjoy connecting with you guys. I enjoy building that relationship between me and you. And hopefully you can take a lot more from this, you know, an hour conversation rather than a minute on Instagram of me, you know, my top off trying to get bigger biceps and leaner abs.

But I think subconsciously it can also have a negative effect on not just the consumer, but also the creator as well. Because when are we getting too much? When are we having too much? When are we consuming too much?

Ben Haldon (36:27.237)
Like when am I going to When I have a kid? When I'm in full time, no that's a part time relationship. That was a weird thing, Ben. It's not a full time relationship. When I another relationship? When I miss more more life? When I miss more occasions? I don't know when that'll be. One of the things it actually creates for me is that thing of quantity over quality.

And again, just the principle of a sense of them. We keep saying yes to everything simply because you were invited.

you watch time evaporate through your fingers like sand. And that's because if you don't prioritize your life, then somebody else will. And that's big thing you need to do with productivity is prioritize life above anything else.

Ben Haldon (37:22.811)
I think one of the best examples of productivity and he is the pinnacle of it. I've really looked up to him for a long time. I think he's a great speaker. And one of the good ones who's out there on social media online is Alex Hormozi. But his level of productivity is off the fricking charts. It's in another dimension. you know, if we use him as an example, successful businessman, successful entrepreneur, successful social media pages, and a lot of dough.

intelligent man in great shape but if you took away his success would he just be a man who is

who has toxic productivity, like, you simply toxic, toxically productive until you're successful? Because that's the big thing I think that changes things from being toxic, toxically product productive is success. Because when someone is just working, working, working, working and they're successful, we just say, the guy's you know, the guy's crushing it, he's killing it versus the guy who's putting in all this work, all this graft, but isn't successful. maybe deem them as

is toxically productive because they're not actually, they haven't got the thing yet. But in order for you to get the thing, you've got to input that toxic productivity and hardware to get to the thing. It's all that stuff before the tip of the ice bag comes out of the water. That's all the quote unquote toxic productivity. I think that's such an interesting way to think about it when I thought about Hormozi and how his workload is crazy and how his output is crazy and volume is crazy. Yeah.

people, maybe some people do, maybe I've used the wrong example because he is probably the hardest worker in the room, but it's how toxic productivity can be viewed differently based on how we deem someone's success to be.

Ben Haldon (39:23.931)
Um, but I think some people handle this differently, especially Hormozi. He definitely deals with his productivity differently. But I think the interesting thing is that even recently he has understood maybe the meaning or purpose of life more by having some life scares. I think it's, it's, it's really interesting to see how he has changed his notion on life as, the guy who was the shark Mondays, the never give up the,

24 hours in a day type of guy to now understand that you can't operate at that capacity at all times and neither can you, neither can anybody else. So it's important that we get a handle on it and we identify and sometimes attach ourselves from hard work. We think that that's the only thing that is our self-worth. So I think the easiest ways that I've jotted down that I've been able to think myself are how did

to do. How to detach yourself from outcomes because the outcomes become your identity is number one, don't check. easiest way to become more outcome independent is to avoid checking outcomes altogether. So one of the things I used to do a lot was check social media and check numbers, et cetera. And it's really easy to attach yourself worth to the numbers. And then that can get you down.

So you need to try and detach yourself from just the metrics. It happens a lot with clients that work with one to one, they attach their self worth to the number on the scale. that's those numbers on scales or numbers on social media or numbers on spreadsheets are supposed to fluctuate up and down. supposed to almost look like a, look at heart rate monitor. If it's in a theater in a hospital, it goes boop, boop, boop, boop and it bounces up and down.

That's how success looks like. That's how metrics looks like. That's how weight loss looks like. But what we're trying to identify is the trend. And as long as over time it's trending up, it's fine to have some down periods. The second thing is do things purely for the sake of doing them. Sometimes it doesn't always have to be for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes it can just be for the sake of doing it because it makes you feel better. Lean into the things that make me feel better of one of the biggest reasons why I do things.

Ben Haldon (41:51.109)
Like it's the emotion over the logic. It's how, when I do this thing, does it make me feel better or does it make me feel worse? And sometimes things can feel worse in the moment, but once you complete them, it's like a workout. I've never walked out of the gym and thought, do you know what? I wish I hadn't done that. Every time I wake up, walk out, sorry, with skin splitting, pumps, some of my biceps and sweat dripping down my forehead, think, yeah, there's the...

There's the sweat equity that I've just put in there in exchange for feeling and looking better long-term. So don't always seek outcome. Seek out rejection of mistakes. This is a big one that not a lot of people probably talk about is just getting things wrong more because the more times you get things wrong is the more times you will get things right. I've read in the book at the moment, I think I mentioned it last week, it's called those say we can't, we do. And a big part of it is a chunk on Disney, Walt Disney, the guy, not the Mickey Mouse.

And about how he got things wrong over and over and over and over and over again. And that's how I became successful. Just by not giving up, just not quitting. And you, the two part test, you can be uber successful by just not quitting. Just, just doing the marathon, just not giving up, just running the whole thing. Despite getting injured, despite getting setbacks, despite bonking, despite not having the right fuel or whatever it may be, just carrying on going. However, sometimes it's important to make sure that your ladder is up against the right wall.

you can spend a long long long time climbing that ladder to get to the top of the wall to realize that you've you've you've got to the top of the wrong wall that's important to note as well and then don't worry about things that you can't control you can't control everything although you think that you might be able to there's a lot of things that completely out of your control don't stress it

Ben Haldon (43:39.279)
And this is summed up beautifully by a book I'm reading at the moment by Thomas Collie and one of the quotes from it says, permanent perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement and impossibilities. It is this that in all things disguises a strong soul from the weak. I think it's just a beautiful quote about the fact of just the

permanence of perseverance and how even despite of things going wrong or things fucking up it's happened to me a lot especially in business things which go wrong and I'd spend hours doing them and go wrong and spend hours doing them and go wrong and then it'll go right things go wrong until they go right simple as that and you'll learn as you go through the things that are going to work for you the things that aren't it's a toolbox I talk about this in fitness times with my clients it's a

is your fitness toolbox that you build up. You'll find some things in the gym, some things that work, some foods that work, there's some things that don't. And as you go through the years of training and nutrition and dieting, you'll build up this fitness toolbox. So pardon me. Of things that work and things that don't.

And you can utilize that tools and you can throw the ones away that don't work for you. Cause it's going to be things that work for the people that don't work for you. So just be mindful of when you build in that toolbox in life, it's throwing away the things that just waste your time. And it's not black and white. It's not lazy or productive.

Which is funny because when I was in school, I was probably deemed as quite lazy.

Ben Haldon (45:21.0)
lazy student. I would only really put in effort if it was in sport. had a messy room. In my head, I was either Homer Simpson or Elon Musk. Probably not Elon Musk, but you get what I'm saying. There was no in between. There was no gray area. was just I was either lazy or I was great. And I think that's the way I got made to feel by school. The school wasn't sort of really set off for me. I was just really active, sporty guy.

I always enjoyed doing things I enjoyed and didn't enjoy doing lessons I didn't enjoy doing. And that was the majority of them. So I think it's easy to think if things are black and white, like you're just a lazy person. one's a lazy person. You just need the right things to give a shit about and not be in contest with the rest of the world. Because you know what's also really funny? I've made a note of this and for anybody who listened to my previous podcasts, I actually said this.

statement on the podcast I think maybe a year and half ago and I'll repeat it exactly back to you. Do you know what is really funny though? Here's a quote

Ben Haldon (46:28.45)
I often work way more hours than the average person. I don't usually have any days off per week. I take probably one holiday per year. The other trips are all business related. After saying all this, I do love it. I wouldn't change it. So am I in a relationship with toxic productivity or am I just doing what I love? Will I regret this in years to come or would I regret not trying? These are all questions I can't answer right now. But if you asked what else I would rather be doing right now, I don't know what I'd say.

However, I think I can answer this now. And this is the thing that comes with foresight and experience. I think it was Matthew McConaughey said that, or you repeated what someone said that we live life forward, but it only makes sense in reverse. So now that I have hindsight, sorry, not foresight, hindsight, is it hindsight or foresight? Whatever it is from learning and experience, I can now say that it's again, a bit of a yes or no, because I fucked this up. I fucked up being

you know, prioritizing productivity over other people and where I got the balance wrong, affected my relationship, my friendships, my family life. And it's hard to say whether, I think it's always hard to say whether you regret something because people say, when I say they have no regrets, but I think people do deep down have regrets. I made wrong decisions that have now taught me things in later life. It's taught me to be the person that I want to be moving forward, taught me to be the man that I want to be moving forward. And

for that I am thankful, but it's a tough lesson to learn. And the times that it can't be fun. And there's times where we're going to have to still work and still have to show up and you're to have to do, you know, you're going to have to not do what you want to do versus what you want to do. And that's going to be a thing that's going to play out in your head. And you've got to the mental resilience to lean into the things, especially when times are needed and you're going to have to do things. You got to show up despite the way that you feel.

That's the biggest thing, showing up despite the way that you feel. Because the person that you need to serve is the you for tomorrow. So you ideally want to try and find something to you if you want to be successful that feels least like suffering. Like some people would, I guess for me would think, you know, he trains a lot.

Ben Haldon (48:52.566)
He lifts a lot. He does a lot of running. He does a lot of rowing. He pulls on those skis quite a lot. throws those war balls at that target quite a lot. He runs around and circles quite a lot. That just seems bloody awful. That seems like nothing but hard work. But you know what, for me, it ain't that bad. I actually quite enjoy it. I actually really enjoy fitness, but there's somebody else that might just seem like self-serve suffering. So you need to really find the thing that you can be successful at that doesn't feel like a huge sacrifice.

and that you actually maybe enjoy a little bit as well, but definitely feels less like suffering because it's to be people in life and they're to be uber successful because they can, it feels less like suffering. It feels less like hard work. And if you can find whatever that thing is for you, which you're actually good at as well, you're going to have a much better quality of life.

So yeah, when you find your thing that doesn't feel like suffering, you'll do well. And that's where I guess what I trying to get out with the quote that I made last year is that I didn't feel like toxic productivity or hard work at the time because at the time there was nothing else that I would rather done. But that's because I didn't have anything else that I would rather do. And this is what I guess a lot of I feel men mess up with now. And I'll tell you a story about when I came over to Australia at the start of this year and be super open about it.

is that I think a lot of men especially exchange pleasure.

exchange purpose for pleasure. They don't have enough purpose, so they lean into pleasure. But what happens when you remove pleasure altogether is that you find what your purpose is. And this comes, think, a lot in this society in the form of porn and social media and drinking and drugs. So this is the first time I've really ever discussed this. And you can probably see from the cross that's sitting around my neck, I really got curious about religion.

Ben Haldon (50:42.882)
And it's one of the things that surprisingly not really helped me as I was going through a difficult point in the last six months. It was a place, it was a community that I really lent into and there's a lot of really helping people there who I'll be forever grateful for. And it was through that, think through February, everybody was doing a fast. I didn't really know what a fast was. I'm actually enjoying life at the moment. What do we need to fast? And this to some people might sound a bit crude, but the two things that I decided to fast was one, monsters, monster energy.

thought, yeah, I could probably bring my caffeine consumption down a little bit and be an anal. And the other thing was masturbation or porn. And I did that for a month. And I guess they were the two sort of small pleasures in life. One being a bigger distraction than any other, especially when you look at the underbelly of Christianity. So monsters and masturbation, the double Ms.

And when I removed those pleasures, I found much more purpose. I can't even probably tell you why it was. It's definitely not a time thing, you know, having a kind of monster or, you know, doing the deed doesn't take up an awful amount of time. But I think the biggest thing is that usually over time, that sort of pleasure, sexual intercourse, comes with some sort of sacrifice. It comes with having to work.

It comes with having to, you know, pursue a woman or it comes with having to pursue your partner. And what porn or masturbation does is it removes all of that friction in between. removes a lot of sacrifice, the hard work, the, the pursuing, the time that goes between where you are now to the sexual intercourse to just being able to flick on your laptop, bring it up on a screen and have endless amounts of

women and sexual intercourse on a phone. So it removes all the hard work it takes to get you there, get there. So what ends up happening is that you value it less and you feel less good about yourself because you actually haven't had to achieve anything. You know, for a lot of guys, all guys, all people, sexual intercourse feels like an achievement because you've had to, you know, pursue someone, you've had to have engaging conversation, you've had to go out, you've had to speak to them, you have to build a relationship.

Ben Haldon (53:06.082)
You've to maybe go on a couple of dates or be in a relationship, whatever, whatever it means is to get to that, that place. So I think that's the big thing that happens with masturbation porn and not monsters and the big thing of exchanging.

purpose and pleasure. that's one of the things. Purpose is a big thing that I'm thinking about at the moment. It's probably something I'm going to speak in the next few episodes about is finding your purpose and how you find your purpose and the distractions that get in the way of purpose. Because I think it's a really sad place at the moment due to one, mass social media and the pressures of that. And then two, pornography, especially for guys. I think we don't really fully understand at this point.

the detrimental cause, I think to not just sexual intercourse, but to relationships. Because I think from reading a book around evolutionary psychology, the end goal for obviously a man when it comes to reproduction and spreading the DNA is to have sexual intercourse with a female. So if the guy isn't out pursuing that, then less people are to be getting in relationships and building confidence and having children. So again, we're going down a bit of a rabbit hole here from

from pleasure to procrastination, but I just want to touch on it because I think it's really important. And I think if you can maybe put some of the pleasures, short term pleasure to the back of your mind and seek purpose, you will be a lot more productive once you have your purpose, which is the thing I'm trying to get to. But again, this week's episode, toxic productivity. Hope that you enjoyed it. Hope that you took something from it. One of the things I really want to do with every single episode is leave you with great value.

So if you can leave me any feedback on the episodes wherever you're watching it or when I set up the email inbox, the ping messages over to me or if you're on Instagram and you want to ping me a DM and say, you know, Ben, this is really good, but this or just this is really good, Ben. I'd super, super really appreciate that. mean, it actually mean a lot to me because I'm spending a lot of time on show notes and spending a lot of time thinking about the topics and you know, we're only into episode two and I'm really enjoying it so far doing this solo podcast and it feels uncomfortable to me. It feels new to me.

Ben Haldon (55:17.51)
And it's only going to get better as we move together on this journey. And like I said last week, hopefully I can be that voice in your corner that is backing you. And after you visit this podcast, you leave being a better place. So I have been Benji, you have been you. Thank you again for listening. Please continue to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to it, because it really, really helped me. And if you found it helpful, so will someone else. So please share it to them. So other than that guys, bon voyage and I'll catch you next week's episode.