Let’s Swap All Our Assumptions About Writing Productivity

If you’re not taking yourself seriously… you must be having fun, right?

Eileen Wiedbrauk
6 min readFeb 13, 2023
Photo by Braydon Anderson on Unsplash

I decided to stop taking myself so seriously. But first, a story: In 2019, I quit my cubicle minion job that was messing with my mental and physical health to write full-time. I didn’t think I was off the 9–5 path forever, but the more I started to breathe post-escape, the more I realized that I never wanted to go back to a grind that didn’t care about me and didn’t work with my brain. Interruptions and task switching are horribly frustrating for me — they’re hard on everyone and statistically lessen productivity. But for the moment, I was writing “full-time”; the plan was to pour 40 hours a week into my writing projects.

I hit the ground running. I had platforms I was already writing on occasionally, and I started regularly producing content. Because you’re only a writer if you’ve written today — or so I unhealthily reminded myself.

I’m 100% okay with being responsible for my own productivity. And I don’t care if anyone reads what I’ve written.

I didn’t have the external pressures of a manager to please, but I had my own pride and stubbornness. And I cared much more about how…

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Eileen Wiedbrauk

Writer. Geek. Coffee addict. Former editor. MFA grad. Odyssey Workshop alum. Library fangirl. Escaped cubicle minion. Home cook. On a mission for better health.