As a person who struggles with wanting to be productive and efficient as much as possible (definitely a form of perfectionism!), it’s important for me to have reframes and ideas that help me stay grounded and present and feeling good about myself, even when I’m not “getting things done”.

One of these reframes, which came to me this morning is, “Even your distractions are productive.” As an example, over the last couple of days I’ve been on a YouTube spree, watching almost all of these home design videos, getting caught up on the videos in this incredible website branding series, and exploring this new-to-me channel for entrepreneurs & coaches.

On today’s episode of the podcast, I’m talking about noticing what your behaviour is trying to tell you, what message it might be trying to send you from outside of your conscious awareness. And in the case of these “distractions”, maybe my behaviour (watching a lot of videos) was trying to tell me a few different things. Clearly, I needed a break from super-heavy brain processing work, a hit of some professional development, and a big dose of inspiration. 

Instead of thinking about these behaviours as distractions that belie my lack of self-control or willpower, I can instead choose to see them as important factors in my wellbeing & success. Taking a break, learning new things, and being inspired are all very productive things for me to do! So I don’t need to beat myself up or feel badly about the choice to watch something that’s interesting to me.

I was trying to think of examples where this might not be true, but short of obsessively playing Candy Crush for hours, I’m not coming up with many. Daydreaming is productive. Cleaning your house because you don’t want to write is productive. Going out for coffee with a friend is productive.

I know that being productive is NOT the goal of life,  but if this reframe will help me move towards more compassion for myself and less stringency about how I spend my days, I’ll take it.

Over the weekend, I somehow stumbled upon this YouTube channel and have since watched almost every single one of her videos. In her major series, “My Rental Reno”, she’s making over her entire apartment in a renter-friendly (ie. mostly reversible) way – and she lives here in Toronto!

I loved watching her put the spaces together with things that seemed so simple – a plant here, a decorative basket there. Her major message was to find beautiful versions of the objects you use every day (like a dish towel or bath mat) and add cute touches to areas we forget, like door knobs and entryways.

The results were always simple but beautiful, and it left me wanting to update and tweak and find lovely things for my own apartment. I changed a few small things right away and immediately felt a fresh burst of energy and affection for my apartment, despite its limitations. Strangely, it also made me feel much more appreciative of the wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces I’ve already thrifted over the years, which suddenly jumped out at me.

I was reminded that so often in life we think we need a big change – a new city, a new job, a new apartment – in order to be happy. We discount little changes that can make a huge difference in our happiness.

Because it’s also true that after an initial period of setting things up in our lives, we tend to stop actively working on it, leaving tons of room for improvement on the table. I remember once hearing a story about a woman who was moving apartments, but realized that she should have cleaned up and spruced up her place years ago because suddenly it had a new life and she wanted to stay in it.

Even though I still have dreams of one day living in an apartment with gorgeous outdoor space, I am inspired to bring more life and love to the place I already have. I know that there is more I could be doing to make it feel cozy and homey and intentional, and I’m excited to do a rental ‘reno’ of my own.