I think I have had a draft version of this post in this document since April. Which I dubbed “Guilt”. I’m really struggling to write something that is both insightful and actionable, but at the same time this is a very relevant topic for me. So let’s try again today.

This is about the feeling that you’re never done and never completely finished. It’s what drives me: there is always something more you can do or learn to get better. This is what makes me feel a little guilty when I’m wasting time or when I’m doing something which doesn’t have a direct meaning or goal.

I still don’t know what I want with this. It is both a driver of more and better work and an annoying feeling at the same time. Working and creating gives me so much joy. But there’s also a lot of people saying that there should be more time to relax and unwind, and probably for a good reason: there’s a ton of research that time to decompress actually helps with the quality of your work.

On the other hand, the people that are saying stuff like that might have another motive: they want to say something like that because they want to justify their own behavior. And just the thought of that makes me want to do so much more than I’m currently doing. Just to prove that it is possible to stretch myself a bit further.

For me it is not depressing, but motivating when someone says: you can do more, do better, start more crazy things. If that works for you too, take this message and go do more!