The word “productive” has been critiqued—justly, in my view—for emphasising a person’s measurable output as a determinant of their personal worth.

I like the word “constructive”. I cannot always be productive (e.g. if I’m tired or experiencing compassion fatigue), but I can always be constructive. I think about the word “worthy” as a synonym for “constructive”: an activity that is worth your limited time and energy as a human on planet Earth.

I think about the distinction as follows.

  • Productive + constructive: writing a quality research report to inform a high-impact policy decision; performing an audit of the furniture in a residential care home.
  • Not productive + constructive: sleep; spending time with family; exercise; watching high-quality content that feeds your soul (for me, soccer!).
  • Productive + not constructive: anything mind-numbing that produces some output but has no purpose. I hesitate to give specific examples, but you know it when you see it! The exemplar of an activity that is productive but not constructive is Monty Python’s Royal Society for Putting Things On Top of Other Things. I would note that simply earning an income to feed yourself and your family is a very important purpose.
  • Not productive + not constructive: low-stakes arguments with strangers on the internet; doom-scrolling social media.

So I prefer to focus on being constructive rather than being productive. Firstly, it is possible to be constructive every day, because (under my definition!) sleep and rest and recovery are highly constructive activities. Secondly, not everything that is productive is constructive, i.e. it’s possible to produce abundant outputs that do not serve any purpose (as our Royal Society illustrates), and this time could be more effectively spent on constructive tasks.