Goes Without Saying - the "lazy" girl myth & productivity: podmas #9

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

on the 9th day of podmas sephy & wing gave to me... chats on mental health, the guilt & shame of never doing enough, and unpacking productivity.join the conversation every monday.shop our merch: sephyandwing.co.ukcome and chat in our book club.speak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com On the ninth day of Pornmas, Steffi Wynn gave to me... I wish I just had something funny to say, but I never do. Productivity.

Productivity. Yeah, it's perfect. Being really lazy amazing um i feel like we actually haven't spoken about this in a while no but it's one of our big topics i think it's one of the founding pillars of our fathers yeah it's the crux of our lives it is a crux go on spit it out i've got nothing to say oh amazing brilliant but i have no like new thoughts on laziness and stuff i think i'm i don't know really whether i'm in a late i don't really feel particularly lazy at the moment but i think it's just that we over the course of this podcast have kind of redefined

what laziness means i think to be lazy well i think i just got my little shame over it now i agree are you feeling particularly productive not really okay um no like also maybe i should because my room is um literally filled with bags that arrived kind of two days ago that haven't unpacked but i think i don't really attach the word laziness to not doing the things you should be doing anymore yeah so i was gonna say so okay what does productivity mean to you like when do you feel productive or do you ever feel productive productivity has a bit of an ickiness to it it's almost like if someone was like i think that often when i've heard people discuss like oh i've just been so productive today i can sniff out a little bit of insecurity in that

as well i'm sure you just in recent recent years i've been when people are i've just been so productive i've just been like oh like i've just when people are i've just been so productive i've just been like oh like i've just had a really productive thing there's often a little bit of like um oh and if you hadn't have that how would you be feeling and i completely see that like obviously when you do get shit done you feel quite good but i think there's like often just like a need to be like quite quite productive like that word i do think sometimes there's a bit of like um yeah just a bit of like an ickiness like a guilt and shame to prove it's yeah there's a guilt and shame vibe to it but i don't really know what productivity means to me well i think i've recently come to a

bit not come to a conclusion but i've been thinking recently about how i sometimes do feel productive and when i feel productive or like i've had a productive day, it's not necessarily, oh, because I've like got loads of things done or got loads of emails, as you know. I'm in that email account. I can see them flooding in. It's not being sent. I think it's more so I feel productive. Like this might sound a bit silly,

but almost when I feel like I'm personally on good form. So like if I've had a few catch-ups, I hate to say the triggering phrase for you, but if I've had a few catch-ups hate to say the triggering phrase for you but if i've had a few conversations i don't care like that was bollocks but almost um if i've been catching up with my friends and i feel like i'm up to date on people's lives and um like i've kind of made something nice for lunch or like yeah i had a nice shower where like i did a hair mask as well as just kind of like get in and out you know i mean like i feel almost i feel like i've i don't know if i've ever really felt productive in maybe like the traditional idea of like oh i got a lot of things done

like for my job or for my work or for school or something i feel like i'm more so in the kind of person that i feel my productivity is more aligned with like what i'm producing for myself because i feel like really nice i feel like when it's for somebody else i'm happy and i feel less stressed when i've got things done that i know i need to do but when i've done things for myself i actually feel deeply productive and i feel accomplished and i feel good in my soul but i think those two things are sometimes at odds or i think like the narrative around them is like kind of what is productivity for me is actually just self-care to everyone else yeah no i think that's that's it but i think that's the whole shift that we've been making really if we think that productivity in

that kind of icky way is the thing of like and i've got things ticked off my to-do list i've done tick tick tick i've got some my emails and all of this what do you think is a key about that sorry to interrupt but like no i don't think there's anything icky about fucking doing your to-do list and sending emails i think that's absolutely fine but like where is the ickiness coming from for us i think it's like if you're if you're if you're finding your worth from ticking off these things i think that's what i see as an ickiness that it's like your day whether your day is has been like pleasant or unpleasant is determined by like how many things you've ticked off and how many basically how much work

you've done i find often like i don't know it doesn't make me feel like obviously it's like you can feel good from like accomplishing things all of these things but actually when i think about how much worth i would put in an email or all of these work things it's like actually i would feel maybe a lot happier if i had done a hair mask, for example. Yeah. I also think as well, like with productivity of like, kind of getting things done off the to do list. Yes, that makes me feel good. And like in that traditional sense, yes, it makes you feel good in the way that you are getting things done, there's less to stress about and you're being productive. So that means you're a worthy human. But also feel like for me i've had to investigate like not only am i a worthy human

because i'm producing and like it's rooted in productivity but it's also i'm focused on productivity because i feel like doing that will get me validation from others yeah and it's capitalism as well of course it's capitalism but kind of like i'll do that so my boss will be happy with me or i'll do that so my tutor will like my essay more and it's like um did i do any of that for myself probably not probably not you did it for yourself in the way that i probably didn't do it if i'm honest actually yeah and if i did it wasn't for me do you feel comfortable at the moment like with your product like with productivity and laziness and all of those things do you feel like you're at a comfortable point yeah i do actually maybe it's because it's christmas as well so i think the pressure comes

right off that there's no like i don't know pressure for it but i think i've definitely been on a bit of a journey shall we say with productivity i think in that like almost since leaving uni yeah well that's what i was gonna say is how did you get there yeah i think in that like almost since leaving uni yeah well that's what i was gonna say is how did you get there yeah i think because we since uni have chosen quite an unconventional path of can you call this work i personally wouldn't i'd call it um absolutely slobbing about dream country yeah um i think i felt almost a guilt and shame over not having like a traditional work thing and then seeing like my friends going to like traditional work and all of this stuff and almost obviously if you're doing a podcast your day looks very different than if you're doing a nine to five

it looks just completely different and i think i had a guilt over your life yeah not being productive enough not doing enough everyone seems to be sending all these fucking emails i haven't sent an email in fucking six months i don't have don't have to send an email to accounts i don't know what fucking accounts is or like all of these business terms all of this stuff i don't know any of this stuff because i i don't do it and i think for the first few almost for first year or so of doing this i think i felt like a real stress about it of like fuck if i'm not being productive in that way i need to find other ways i need to find creative ways to be really productive and all of this stuff um but i

i do you know what i think feeling more established in this and feeling more comfortable in owning this and not being like i do a shitty little podcast thing like it's it's a joke in my friendship like with my friends that if someone ever asked me at a party what do you do i've always been like i do this silly little like thing on the internet like don't even look at it i'm just a piece of shit yeah don't even look at me and now i don't even know when i made the decision but like to really own it and i think we've spoken about this with each other a lot of like every day what's the answer you give and all of this stuff but being like oh i have a podcast and then usually people say like oh i'd love to have a little side hustle or like oh it's nice to have a little hobby things like that and like actually being able to

be like oh no it's my like it's it's my job obviously it's not a fucking job but like it's it's my life it pays my bills like it's my side hustle it's my baby no it's like this is an established thing and actually owning it yeah established in the scheme of like if this is the most established it's ever been all of that shit and i think in owning it and being like this is what i do and then my day-to-day obviously will look different to someone that is the ceo of a fucking company and i just like that i love that but like i like owning the um day-to-day without having any sort of like like for example i could watch an episode of the office at 11 in the morning and the podcast would be none no different none the wiser i do do that you would have no scooby about it and i think i felt

shit about that for a while but actually i think god how can you feel shit about that like that's really really fucking nice and you can choose you can choose whether you want to go do that or you want to do fucking anything else to be honest which is really nice well good for you you deserve that i also i was gonna say as well i think obviously like having something that feels more established that you can find confidence in will help feeling like it takes the stress off of measuring your productivity every day but i also think there is like a real personal component to it like a real journey component to it, like a real journey component to it in the sense that even if the podcast hadn't changed

and we were still very much like trying to get it off the ground, I still think you would have made huge leaps and bounds. Like I think your whole idea of yourself has shifted and that enforces how you view your productivity and like your relationship to that because i think even take the podcast away i still think who you are and the way that you find value and like worth in yourself has grown so much i think so as well yeah like regardless of what you're doing because i almost think you don't have to have well i definitely think you don't have to have anything at all to feel like you're a valid definitely not that's what you're

saying at all but more so like yeah regardless of any like whatever you have i think you as a person in yourself obviously are bringing so much validity like as a human being regardless but i also think you've done a lot of critical thinking over the years, to be honest, about how you find value in yourself. I agree. Yeah, no, I agree. And also how you want to spend your time. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Here's a show that we recommend. In the early 1980s, gay men started to get sick from AIDS. Years before ACT UP, before HIV was discovered, before the history you know,

there were people on the front lines of the fight against AIDS. Joe Sonnabin. Michael Callen. Bobby Campbell. I'm Dane Stewart, and in the new season of my podcast, Resurrection, I tell the stories of heroes of the early AIDS movement. Like the story of a cabaret singer and a sex worker who invented safe sex and saved millions and millions and millions of lives go check out resurrection wherever you listen to podcasts a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com Yeah, I think sometimes there's kind of shame around, we've kind of, we've touched on this briefly

across different episodes of Podmas really, about like, there's, I think there is like inherently a layer of guilt and shame sometimes in the ways that we want to spend our time because we feel like for whatever reason they're not right so like we were having a conversation the other day about you saying about some hobbies you feel like aren't like grown up or like adult hobbies you need to let them go and things like that and i think actually sometimes it's not about thinking about

how productive you are or how you can be more productive or where you're drawing your worth or what you can do more of or what you need to change and it's more just about letting go of the pressure that you feel around being a certain type of person and spending your time in a certain kind of way because even you being like oh i shouldn't play stardew not that you do say that but feeling a certain way about for example playing stardew valley which i know for a fact you love love it best game ever designed there we go i must say but then also feeling stress around like oh but i should be spending my time um doing a more traditional work or i should be spending my time doing something really creative and it's almost like yeah release the pressure however you end up spending your time that you

like is good enough yeah and thinking about why you want to do that like i yeah there's definitely like an idea that's like okay so if i want to do creative things like it was like okay so today i want to spend the day doing a painting for example it's like why do you want to do the fucking painting do you want to do the painting so that's like so i can almost tick off okay so you did a really cool creative fun thing today or do you actually want to sit down and do the painting and i think and the idea of like okay so i want to do i feel a guilt and shame about not um being in traditional work because i i look around and i see that that's what you should be around me are doing so clearly that's what i should be doing do i actually want to do a traditional

job no i clearly don't because i fucking love this and i want to do this and it's everything so why do i want to do that what i want to do is i can get a pat on the back i want to go and be like okay so i'm going to go get a job in an office so that everyone goes like yeah yeah okay you're one of us you're one of us you're not like an outsider here actually it's just about acceptance and all of this stuff and it's like okay i need to accept well and i feel like i massively have accepted i'm not doing the same thing as the vast majority of people that i know and that's kind of scary but also amazing and if you never do a painting again also valid like 100 because i think as well kind of what you're just saying like there are especially now with social media i feel like everything can get really easily wrapped around like an identity or like a desire to brand yourself up and like represent yourself i'm

gonna represent myself as a creative person i'm gonna represent myself as a fun person like that is what i do exactly and that means you can't ever do anything you can't ice that means i'm cool that means i'm edgy that means i'm fun that means i'm this and that and all of these things and it means i am not worthless and a loser and all of these and yeah yeah yeah i feel like we're constantly trying to put ourselves in boxes and like find new ways that we can like rack up points to be like a better person or like closer to this image of ourselves that we want to be and sometimes it's like as simple as sitting down and thinking what do i fucking want to do right now rather than like well i saw emma chamberlain sit and paint and

maybe that looks good so i should sit and paint or like oh i saw emma chamberlain start drumming so maybe i should start drumming like do you know what i mean like any of these maybe you should start drumming maybe you should start painting but also don't worry about the shit that you do that doesn't fit into something that you've seen look hot or cool or whatever it's exactly that i think do you see all these kind of sparkles yeah it looks so good it's the sequiny dress and the mermaid dress yeah it's my mermaid dress i wear this every single um new year's eve i've worn it for the last like four new year's eves in a row i don't know if i'm gonna fit into it this year every year it just gets slightly tight i remember it's a mermaid and with your halloween to be a mermaid yeah i think i'm gonna wear it this year

stunning but yeah i think it's entirely that i think with the the internet kind of feels like there's a lens on you at all times yeah and like that i think it's exactly what you said about the idea of branding and i do think that just obviously so high into capitalism that's like you can make more money if you are easily understandable as for example you make jewelry that's what you do you have a jewelry shop and people go to your instagram and they can see that you have a jewelry shop blah blah and i think that because that's what we see mirrored back at us all the fucking time on instagram there becomes this desire to like also kind of be one of those people that has like a clear cut this is me all of that stuff and i just think it is so disgusting and it's one of the reasons i have

a whole thing about instagram that i just think it's not a place that a lot of the time i see a lot of nastiness here i think it limits human experience and all of this stuff and that is one of the ways in which that happens i think it's a capitalist thing and i think it's also a patriarchal thing in the sense that it's like oh like kind of cool girls do this or that girl does this or the it girl does that or the clean girl does this and it's like yeah trying to find like can't you just be you yeah exactly can't you just be you exactly but like do you need to be a clean girl hobbies align with certain personas and it's just very limiting and also really difficult to adhere to and i think it encourages people to then think there's

something wrong with them because they can't keep up with all these hobbies that they think align with them as a person yeah well i i should be reading more or i i should be like watching less tv or all i do is watch um in uh made in chelsea and i should spend more time reading classics it's like why though why though and for who well yeah for performance and if no one could see what you were doing what would you do this is i think that's the question but it's so true i think that's one of the things that i mean was one of the i hate to bring it back to instagram yeah but it's one of my things that i always think like if no one could see if you could post no photos of this thing would you do it or slash would you go if you could go to this concert but you couldn't take any photos of it could you be asked to get out of bed if you could wear this makeup but you couldn't take any photos

of you wearing the makeup would you wear the makeup all of this stuff and i think it's a good question to ask in terms of productivity of like if no one if you never get to show your workings you never get to show the thing that you create in this thing or you never get to tell anyone that you did the thing would you get out of bed and if you wouldn't then what the fuck are you doing staying in bed then because if you're only doing it to tell other people come on who's it for then yeah yeah there's a real um i think tricky difference between like celebrating things and like finding community and like purpose with your peers and just trying to claw really desperately at like validation from validation other human being yeah yeah i also think something

i wanted to touch on in this episode is that obviously like this concept of laziness doesn't it just disregards so many of like to be honest the realities of being human like earlier stephanie and i were having a conversation about tampons and periods and if you're on your period you're gonna feel like you're on your period but someone might say you're lazy and they can go fuck themselves or like if you can really go they can really go or like um for example i feel like mental illness is a huge thing that plays into um i guess like conventional ideas of productivity so much that it's really that's so fucking true yeah and and and it's also like the same people who will be saying god you know you'd probably feel better

if you were just a bit less lazy and you like got up and did something are also the same people saying oh my god like mental health awareness like lots of love like reach out to your friends who are also the same people who are saying oh my god why don't you just do this this and this who are also the same people who are saying oh well sometimes you just want to you know it's okay to just sit in bed like for an afternoon every now and then it's so confusing and annoying and it's so dangerous because i think it really keeps people in the really dangerous cycle of struggling with their mental health starting to feel worse and worse fed the guilt and shame by other people that then feeds the guilt and shame they already feel themselves and it just goes on and on and on that is so true i almost feel like you saying that really clicked in my head with because i immediately jumped to

like yeah depression you're lying in bed and it's like okay i'm feeling shit about this now blah blah blah blah but then i was even thinking about when i really struggled with social anxiety at uni yeah i couldn't my anxiety was all around seminars i couldn't go to my lessons yeah and then obviously i felt so like i felt like there was an idea of like she's skipping out of class essentially she's not going to these things she's probably just lying in bed probably hung over whatever like what must my lecturers think of me that i'm not showing up to these things yeah and it's like no it's because i'm being sick it's like i'm in the toilet being sick with nerves um and i and i got all the sleep the night before and all of the stuff i did all of the stuff and i'm being i'm fucking throwing up and there was definitely an idea and i kind of think i

questioned within myself like am i just too fucking lazy to go like do i just not want to fucking go but it's like no it's like you actually are like massively ill i honestly honestly really genuinely believe that if anyone is being considered quote-unquote lazy it's actually a really big signifier at a different issue that really needs to be addressed like sometimes every now and then sure you might be like fuck that don't want to do it whatever and it really is just as simple as that and i don't have to go that deep and it's just whatever but i often actually think the majority of the time if you feel like there's a real big barrier in between you and this thing that you need to do. It probably, actually, I would say it definitely isn't

just because you're a fucking lazy piece of shit. There's a bigger problem here and you deserve to be able to ask for help or give yourself the space to explore what might be challenging you from doing the things that you feel like you do want to do. Do you know what? I remember I was doing the rounds on YouTube. I was probably hanging around on there like clicking on random shit sure and there was a

video that came up just doing my lazy my lazy girl routine yeah um and i saw a video that was like why procrastination isn't real and i didn't click on it because i just thought i'd fucking know like look the title's told me yeah i know it all it's like and i assume what the video is going to say but even if it wasn't i know i know why procrastination is not real and it's for all the reasons you just said of like if you want to sit down and do a painting you really want to do this fucking painting but you keep putting it off all of this stuff it's probably not that you can't be asked to do the painting it's that you're going to have this view of yourself that's like what if the painting isn't good enough what if i'm not good enough nothing i ever do is good enough i'm probably not a good painter maybe i should be

doing something else i honestly think it's definitely not that you can't be asked is it it's not i just can't fucking be asked to do the thing i really want exactly yeah it's not that doesn't make any sense what's wrong with us are we dumb we're just lazy it's like we're not lazy but we are fucking dumb and also it's because you're fucked up like it's like it's not that you can't be asked it's that you think you're not good enough yeah yeah yeah it's actually way worse yeah oh you thought you had you thought you were tired you're actually chronically insecure you need to get on a waiting list it's been 25 minutes yeah i'm honestly happy to leave it there yeah same just started getting good yeah yes i just finally got the cracks and bye finally got

the cracks all right see ya we got there though i think that's it though i do think that's the cracks and i i just say yeah go go no no you go you go no no please please i also think there is an element of romanticizing to be had within laziness like i think the thing is when you feel like you're not really doing anything all of this stuff why put shame on when you could put love on like why don't you put fun on like put fun into that it's like right okay you're in bed you're reading a book whatever the fuck you want to do you're you've got nothing to do chill out have a bath like that's there's an element of like luxury in that oh my god undeniably and also I think even if it's um sad that we change our behaviors in our lives for how they are perceived by other people how we hope that they will be perceived by other people

if you want to use that as like a tool to get you to romanticize being lazy and take if that helps you take the guilt off and just lets you have a couple of hours watching tv or fucking two weeks of watching tv for all i care oh two years honestly what's your two fucking decades yeah i honestly think there is so much value in the conversation of it's really sad that why do we have to like romanticize things and think about how they're being viewed to find worth in them and blah blah blah um like almost why is slobbing about not inherently valid why does it have to be slobbing about in a gorgeous ganny scrunchie and a gorgeous little dressing gown and a lovely little do you

know i mean like yeah sure but if that makes you feel fucking better then do it like sorry surprise surprise you like nice things you want to look nice like yes you live in a patriarchy you live in a capitalist world like you don't exist in a void you do want appreciation from other people you do want to feel valid you do want to feel amazing just fucking go for it i don't fucking care and that's the motto yeah there's the crap we found it we don't fucking care live your life have fun thank you so much for listening to this nonsense once again this has been fun hasn't it this has been fun i mean we keep saying every day how much we're enjoying this i really hope i wonder if anyone's listening like every day oh they are definitely i wonder no they definitely are but that's mad isn't it

it's like what you're coming back every day like is anyone waiting for this it's coming out in the evening i'm listening to them every day yeah the morning noon and night no oh my god they're being people being really fucking nice so thanks guys and also i think um as i said i know we said this before but it's kind of made us just put things into perspective and think about our own productivity when it comes to this podcast and things like that and i think definitely we found the crux and we'll see you in the new year we'll actually see you tomorrow don't worry about it yeah don't panic so what are you cancelling we're having a six month break after this you guys haven't been listening to these all at once have you how funny is it through these all at once you idiots um stack these up don't listen to these

every day you've been savoring these but how funny is it that this has done the opposite of like wear us out like i feel like this has energized to like the next level yeah it's so fun thanks everyone well on that note congratulations Wendy's Small Frosty is the ultimate summer refreshment. And not because it's cool and creamy and made with fresh Canadian dairy. It's also refreshingly cheap. Just 99 cents until July 14th. It's a treat for you and your wallet.