We get into a vicious circle when we’re anxious about our productivity. We get anxious about falling behind, our anxiety interferes with our work, and then we worry about falling even further behind. We tell ourselves we’d feel better if only we could work a bit faster - but instead we end up watching cat videos on YouTube. It doesn’t have to be like this. Your wise, imperfect friend is here to tell you how to break the cycle.

The blog posts mentioned in the episode, which summarise some of the research on the role of daydreaming in writing, are:

Kaufman, S. B. and Singer, J. L. 2011: ‘The origins of positive-constructive daydreaming’, Scientific American, 22nd December.

Kaufman, S. B. and Singer, J. L. 2012: ‘The creativity of dual process “system 1” thinking’, Scientific American, 17th January.

Here’s my Twitter thread describing the first steps I took towards cracking my own productivity anxiety.