What if your productivity obsession is making you less productive?
We love checking boxes. Crushing to-do lists. Staying busy. But most of the time, your body is smarter than your calendar. And when you ignore what it's telling you, you don't just risk burnout. Your health depends on it.
So today, I'm showing you 4 times when listening to your body beats listening to your to-do list.
Let's dive in.
Time #1: When your energy is low but your schedule says go.
Your body has natural energy cycles throughout the day. High points and low points. They're predictable.
Most people ignore them completely.
They force deep work during low-energy windows. Then wonder why everything feels impossible. But working when your energy is low doesn't make you disciplined. It makes you slow.
You'll spend two hours on something that would take 30 minutes during a high-energy period.
I used to make the same mistake.
I get the easy work done first thing in the morning and the hard work at the end, which actually makes me anxious, because I never did the work the way I wanted, so I felt really disappointed with the results. But that's actually super normal thing. The moment I started working the hardest work which is the one that needs my full focus and attention during my actual peak hours, (in the morning) everything changed. Double the output. Zero frustration.
Your body knows when it can do great work. Listen to it.
Time #2: When you need caffeine just to function.
There's a difference between enjoying coffee and needing it to survive.
When you're on your third cup before noon, your body is screaming at you. It's saying you're running on empty. And most people don't know that caffeine doesn't create energy. It just hides exhaustion.
Every time you use coffee to override tiredness, you're borrowing energy from tomorrow. And your body will collect that debt:
- You can't sleep even when you're exhausted
- Your anxiety spikes randomly
- You get sick more often
- Everything feels harder than it should
And the irony is that you drink caffeine to be productive, but the exhaustion underneath makes everything take longer.
That email that should take 5 minutes to read, now it takes 20.
When you need caffeine just to function, you don't need more coffee.
You simply need more rest.
I’ve fallen into this trap so many times, and it never worked out the way I thought it would. I work in the morning, have lunch, and then my energy crashes because of the food. Instead of taking a short rest or going for a walk, I grab another coffee and sit down to work again.
But this never really works, because I can’t produce the same quality of work as when I’m well-rested. So instead of another coffee, just take a 20-minute nap trust me, it’s the best thing ever. You can have your second coffee after that, but I don’t recommend drinking coffee after 2 p.m. because it really messes with your sleep.
Time #3: When simple tasks feel impossible.
You know when replying to an email feels like climbing a mountain?
That's not laziness. That's your nervous system tapping out. When you're chronically stressed or tired, even small tasks drain you. Because you have nothing left in the tank.
But most high-achievers double down. They guilt themselves. They sit at their desk for hours producing nothing. Then beat themselves up for "wasting time."
Meanwhile, your body is trying to protect you. It's making work feel hard because pushing forward won't produce good work anyway. That resistance isn't sabotage. It's wisdom.
Here's the paradox: one hour of rest gives you back three hours of focus. But you have to actually stop.
Time #4: When you keep getting sick and keep pushing through.
Your immune system runs on the same fuel as your productivity. When you never rest, it tanks.
Chronic stress wrecks your immune function. Poor sleep prevents recovery. Endless work leaves nothing for fighting off illness. And when you do get sick but try to "power through," you stay sick way longer.
Your body will make you rest. You either choose when, or it chooses for you through getting sick. One option is taking a peaceful day off. The other is losing two weeks to illness.
The choice is obvious.
What most productivity advice misses is that your body isn't a machine.
You have natural rhythms. Limits. Wisdom. The most productive people aren't the ones who ignore every signal and push through. They're the ones who know when to push and when to rest.
Your to-do list will always want more. Always have another task. But you only get one body.
- When you rest before you're forced to.
- When you honor your energy.
- When you stop using caffeine to mask exhaustion.
You don't become less productive.
You become sustainably productive.
So next time your body says slow down and your to-do list says speed up, ask yourself: which one has kept you alive this long?
Trust that answer.
See you next week
-Ekaterina
