#37. SLPs and Hustle Culture Series Episode 2: Busy vs Productive
Episode Shownotes:
In the second episode of the "SLPs and Hustle Culture Series," I'm unpacking the difference between "busy" and "productive" and how our obsession with being busy is killing our time management. And in a world where so many believe that the more we accomplish in a day, the more successful we are, it's easy to fall victim to the trap of hustle culture. What if instead, we focused on quality over quantity: in other words, getting the right things done rather than getting the most things done? How might that lead to better work-life balance? Tune in to today's episode to find out.
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Episode Transcript*:
This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name is Theresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnt out and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in.
Hey SLPs, welcome back to another episode. This is the second episode of the Hustle Culture series that I'm doing, and today we're going to be talking about the difference between being busy versus being productive. I think that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but, more importantly, I think that our vision of what each of those words means impacts the way that we spend our time and contributes to that hustle culture that's so prevalent within our field. So what I want to do is talk to you about my definitions of each of these, and then I want you to consider what your definitions are for each of these. So, for the purposes of this podcast, the way that I would define busy is constantly, or near constantly engaged in tasks, activities, appointments, events, etc. that fill your schedule. So your schedule is filled with expectations, it's filled with appointments, and you know plans that take up your time. That is what I consider to be busy very little downtime, free time, unscheduled time or, if there is such a thing, you fill it with XYZ. You're not really pausing and resting, you are putting around and just getting things done. You know, so on and so forth, versus productive. Now, to me and this is important, but to me, my idea, my definition of productive, productive means accomplishing the things that are most important, necessary and meaningful, and you know, my definition changes on any given day, but it's in terms of the semantics, but the idea, the general idea, is always the same. That's how I define being productive. It's doing, it's spending your time on, or spending your time with the things or the people that are most important to you, and you do it in a way in which you are in control or the one choosing how you're spending your time intentionally.
Now, granted, there's definitely things that I do every day that I do not want to do. They're not necessarily the things that are most meaningful to me, but they are things that are necessary, right? For example, I always think of my first—my first thought is always school lunches. And then I say to myself, “Don't say that out loud, Theresa, they're gonna think you're a horrible parent,” but I do feed my kids every day. But I will tell you that is definitely not a meaningful task for me, but it happens. I have to do it, right? It is necessary.
So being productive does involve some things that are less than appealing, but it also involves things that are fun and meaningful and move the needle towards whatever purpose or goal might exist. Okay, so that is how I consider, those are the sort of the differences in my mind between busy and productive. But, most importantly, you need to think about how you define each of these terms. What do they mean to you? How do you picture, envision busy? How do you envision, envision or picture productive? What does that look like for you?
Now, it's interesting as a coach, sometimes I'll say a productivity coach, sometimes I'll say time management coaching and in fact, the certification that I will be receiving soon, I cannot wait, is going to be certified productivity coach. Technically, those are, that's the title. So it's interesting because, while that is a label that people use and I too have used that, it means that I think what happens is that people think productivity coaching is about getting more done in less time, and in fact, some people come to me because they are like, “Well, I just want to get more accomplished, I just want to get more things done faster so that I have more free time.” In their mind, that's sort of how it goes right, and while that might be a part of it, that might be one of sort of the that might be the benefit, one of the byproducts or one of the benefits of coaching is that you can get more done in less time, that is not my primary focus. It might be the primary focus for other productivity coaches, and that's fine, that's great. Then they are, then those are the people that you want to go to, but for me, when you work with me, it's not about doing more work in less time. That's not the primary focus. Because when that is the primary focus, it just perpetuates that line of thinking that our value as humans is is determined by the number of things that we accomplish. It just perpetuates that underlying belief that the busier I am or the more things I do, the more valuable I am, the more successful I am, and what does that do? That keeps us in Hustle Culture, that keeps us overworking, because you then fill your quote-unquote free time with more tasks, because you have this belief that the more tasks you do, the better you are as a human, right? So, for me, and what I do with my clients is I help clients to understand that what we work on is shifting the thoughts and the beliefs about time. We start there. We look at your individual core values, your core needs, and what you believe is how you should spend your time versus what you believe is how you want to spend your time, and then we create a plan so that you can start spending your time exactly how you want to. So the goal for me is never about the goal itself, is never about getting more done in less time although that certainly comes up in sessions and in fact might happen for clients as we work together. But when we think about then busy versus productive, I think that there are three major limiting beliefs that you as an SLP, probably have probably have at least one of these. I know I have had all three of these before.
That is keeping you in that hustle culture mindset. It's keeping you in this place of, “I have to work harder, I have to do more.” Or it's keeping you from being able to make changes to your lifestyle and your schedule so that you can ease up, take your foot off the gas a little bit, because if you do, you're afraid that it's going to negatively impact your reputation, your career, your business, so on and so forth. So I'm going to share each belief and walk you through how this might show up for you. So I want you to listen with an open mind and ask yourself do I agree with that statement? What part of me agrees with that statement? And get really curious, because I bet it will lead to some new awareness that will help you make the shifts that you're trying to make, for those of you that are trying to break free from this hustle culture.
So the first limiting belief is that the more boxes I check, the more successful, important, valuable I am. So I hinted at this and touched on it a few minutes ago. But this is a very prevalent belief, especially in our field. Now, I'm definitely generalizing here, stereotyping, but many SLPs, present company included, many SLPs are that high-achiever, over-worker, people-pleasing, perfectionist type personality, and so we find ourselves in a room or on a team with other people that are very similar, like that, and we see them achieving. And then we also have that mindset so we're achieving and everyone is just checking off boxes.
It's like, how much did I get done today, how many things do I have on my list and how much do did I accomplish? Now. I'm not saying that that in and of itself is a problem. Trust me, I love a good checklist. I definitely love the little dopamine hit that you get when you check off a box. I'm all about it. Ask anyone who knows me my checklists all have boxes. It's just what I do, right? I love that. But I have to be very cautious and very aware of that line of thinking and catch it when it starts to get me in trouble, because I definitely, while I enjoy checking off a box, I definitely have had to work hard at un—I would say untangling or detangling what's the right word here, SLPs? That belief or association of the more I do, the better I am. The more I accomplish, the more successful the day, the more valuable I am as a speech pathologist, as a mom, as a homeowner or a business owner. Okay, so check in with yourself, no pun intended. Does this show up for you when you have a day where you're not accomplishing what you intended to accomplish? How does that leave you feeling? What do you make that mean about yourself? And then ask yourself, how does that lead you to work or hyper-focus, or overwork, to get as much done as possible? How does that actually keep you stuck? Okay, so that's the first limiting belief.
The second limiting belief that's so common among the field of SLPs is something along this sort of, I don't know, this sentence: If I have free time, it's because I'm lazy. Or if I have free time where I'm not doing anything, I am lazy, or I'm unproductive, I'm doing something wrong. It's some semblance of that. Okay, now what happens if you have some version of that thought, some version of that limiting belief? What happens is you fill your schedule. You fill it all available time with work-related tasks or functional type, performative type tasks that are boxes that you can check off. Or you take the tasks that you're already doing and you stretch them. You spend more time on them to make them quote, unquote better, to perfect them. So to write the perfect evaluation report or I don't know the most detailed session note, you start to fill your time with things, with work, because you believe that if you're not, it means something bad about you. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to spend some of your free time working. What I am saying is that look at the energy behind that decision. Are you doing that because you love your job, or you love those tasks and it's really important to you, or are you doing that because you think you need to prove something or satisfy your supervisor or admin, or because you need to prove yourself as a speech pathologist? So how does that limiting belief show up for you and how does that keep you stuck in hustle culture?
And then the third limiting belief, the last one that I'm going to touch on today, and this kind of segues right from that one, is I can't say no. I cannot say no. I can't say no to my boss. I can't say no to my supervisor. I can't say no to my colleagues. I can't say no to my clients. I can't say no to my family, I can't say no. So you can guess how this keeps you stuck in hustle culture.
You are always saying yes. You're saying yes to things that you want to be saying no to. You're saying yes to extra cases on your caseload. You're saying yes to unrealistic expectations for turnaround time for a session note or an evaluation report, or you're saying yes to clients that you're not qualified to see, quite frankly, because SLPs are busy, right, and who am I to say no? I have no right to say no. I can't say no to those things. So I'm just going to suck it up because this is what we do. Everyone else is doing it, I'm going to do it too. If I say no, it means that I'm a bad SLP. It means that, right, still in the blank here, some version of bad SLP is probably what's going to show up.
So you have to look at: Is that true? If you're, if you have this limiting belief that you can't say no, challenge it. Is that true? Can you not say no? Can you not maybe have a conversation with your supervisor or with admin? Is there something that you can do to set and hold a boundary? I would challenge you.
For those of you that are listening who might be thinking, “Well, Theresa, I don't work for myself, I'm not a business owner. I don't have the luxury of saying no,” I'm going to challenge you a little bit. Is that true? What can you say no to. I bet there's something you can say no to, even if it's, even if it's simply a shift in your thinking, even if it's, even if it's saying no to perfecting your evaluation report or saying no to, you know, having putting the pressure on yourself to create the perfect therapy session, the perfect activity or lesson plan or take home activity for a family, right? There are things that you are doing that you can modify or that you can quite frankly say no to. You can have a conversation with your boss, you can have a conversation with your team about what are the boundaries here, what are our boundaries? How can we support one another in creating realistic boundaries that are fair and reasonable and that we can not just, you know, create in our minds but actually hold true? Right, don't say yes to things because you think that you're an SLP and SLPs can't say no. All right.
So, to recap busy versus productive busy is constantly doing tasks with very little meaning thought intention behind them, versus productive is accomplishing the things that are important, necessary and meaningful to you. Three common limiting beliefs that SLPs have, that keep us stuck in hustle culture, and these beliefs are related to being busy versus being productive. First limiting belief is that the more I accomplish, the more important or valuable or successful I am. Second one is that if I have free or unstructured time I'm lazy or I'm doing it wrong. There's something wrong with me. And then the third one is I can't say no.
So I want you to pop into the SLP Support Group and share with us which of these three beliefs resonates most with you and what do you want to do about it. What are you taking away from this episode that's going to change how you show up at home and at work, so that you can break free from that hustle culture and start working and start creating better work, life, harmony in all areas of your life, so that things feel easier and more enjoyable? I definitely want to hear from you, so make sure you're in the SLP Support Group on Facebook. The link is in the shownotes, and if you want more individualized help with any of this, there's always a link in the shownotes to book a free call where I can tell you exactly how I can help you. All right, that's it for this episode. I will see you in the third episode of the Hustle Culture series. Cannot wait.
*Please note that this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.