When I attended music college as a Jazz Guitar Major in 2011, the above was a mantra that got burned into my mind.

Every minute not spent practicing is a waste of your time.

A dilution of your potential.

This was my introduction to toxic productivity, and this attitude is not exclusive to music.

“No days off” and “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” are heard frequently in entrepreneurship culture.

This mindset is a surefire way to sabotage your happiness.

Why would you spend time relaxing with loved ones, enjoying a good meal, or exploring ideas in a riveting book when you could be working — making gains in your life a business?

When you fall victim to this mentality, you cannot enjoy any aspect of your life besides work.

The brilliant writer Tim Urban has called this the “Dark Playground.”

You enter the Dark Playground when during one of the rare moments you allow for fun or enjoyment, you’re too caught up inside your mind to relax and be present.

Hard work is an important value and is undeniably required to reach your potential. But it’s overrated.

The most successful people have figured out how to work smart, not just hard.

The life I aspire to is one where I can leverage working smart and spending time doing things that I enjoy and allow me to decompress.

And I’m not alone.

The productivity landscape is changing.

Hustle culture is dying, and the phoenix rising from its ashes is much better: Intentional Productivity.

Intentional productivity focuses on the results over the metrics.

How much time you spend working isn’t important.

What matters are your results.

A few key characteristics distinguish Intentional Productivity from traditional hustle culture.

Focus > Time

The focus you bring to your work is more important than the hours.

The current trend in productivity culture is to prioritize deep work.

You do deep work when you focus singularly on the task at hand without any distractions in your environment.

Deep work is mentally exhausting, and if you’re truly doing it, you probably won’t have more than a few hours of it in the tank daily.

But if you use it right, you’ll get more done in a few hours of deep work than a few days worth of shallow work — work performed when you’re distracted with other tasks.

The Value of Decompression

I recently listened to YouTuber extraordinaire Mr.Beast on the Lex Fridman show.

Mr.Beast (whose name is Jimmy Donaldson) is as Type A as you get. He is obsessed with his craft, and his results speak for themselves.

But what was interesting was how Jimmy talked about how he’s learned to value decompression time.

He spoke about how he hated himself for doing anything unrelated to making great videos and building his business.

But as he’s gained experience, he’s learned that decompressing by doing something completely different is beneficial to performing his best work.

Recharge time is not procrastination or wasteful; it is part of the process. If you don’t allow time to decompress and fill up your tank, you won’t have what it takes to come back and deliver your best results.

Mr.Beast isn’t the only successful person encouraging decompression.

Sahil Bloom is approaching a million Twitter followers at the time of writing, and he frequently advocates the importance of rest in a productivity system.

You feel guilty when you rest and see it detracting from your efforts.

But you need to change your perspective on this: adequate rest is a part of your process.

You can’t perform your best work without it.

Be Intentional With Your Time

Intentional Productivity isn’t about always working, but it means always being aware of how your time is serving you.

Anything you do should fall into one of the following categories:

• Learning

• Building (working)

• Connecting (nurturing relationships)

• Decompressing (anything you do that recharges your batteries)

There are two big potential time wasters: the Dark Playground and Psychic Entropy.

The Dark Playground is when you attempt to decompress by doing something that should be fun, but you are unable to relax.

You can’t get out of your head — so you’re not relaxing and decompressing, and you’re also not doing anything productive.

It’s worse than a waste of time.

One of the most effective ways I’ve found to combat the Dark Playground is always to accomplish important tasks first.

I’ll be more present for a movie night with my fiance if I’ve put in my two hours of writing earlier that day.

Psychic Entropy is a disorder in consciousness.

It’s when you act incoherently because you aren’t aware of how your current actions fit into your life’s big picture and are disengaged and lethargic.

Psychic entropy is often brought on by stimulating and distracting activities like scrolling social media or binge-watching.

You’re not decompressing; you’re not engaged and enjoying yourself; you’re not focused and in flow — you need to audit your life for these destructive activities.

Watching a show you love ( and using it to decompress ) is great — but zoning out into the disengaged state of psychic entropy is not.

Intentional productivity is about valuing your time and always being intentional about the purpose of your activity.

It doesn’t mean always working, but it does mean that you don’t waste your time.

But with intentional productivity, the definition of “not wasting time” has been expanded to include the activities that help you rest and recharge.

You take advantage of intentional productivity when you: