TED Talks Daily - How to escape your obsession with productivity | Rebecca McMackin and Catherine Price

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

Why are we so obsessed with productivity? Horticulturist Rebecca McMackin (who wants people to let their lawns grow wild) and author Catherine Price (who wrote a book about the power of fun) come together to discuss the relief of giving up control. From growing milkweed to taking up unproductive hobbies, they dig into the benefits of rest — and why doing something for its own sake shouldn't need defending. (This conversation is part of "TED Intersections," a series featuring thought-provoking conversations between experts navigating the ideas shaping our world.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. We're back with the next episode of our original series TED Intersections, which features unscripted conversations between experts navigating the ideas shaping our world. When's the last time you did something purely for the joy of it, with nothing to show for it afterward? Our two guests think we don't do it nearly enough. Rebecca McMacken is an ecological horticulturalist who wants people to let their lawns grow wild. Catherine Price is a science journalist and the author of a book about having fun.

What they share is the conviction that a lot of us have been sold a lie, that time only counts when it's productive. They say the truth is far more freeing. Life's most valuable parts are immeasurable. If you're just hanging out with a friend and you have a great conversation, why is that not considered productive, right? And I'm curious about your thoughts in terms of gardening. What is productive, what's not productive? Like the root of productive is to lead forth pro duco, famigate, super dorky and go Latin, right at the beginning of this conversation.

Across the conversation, Rebecca and Catherine get into the relief of giving up control, why adding a little friction to your life might be worth it, and what a 400-year-old oak tree can teach us. At a time where so many people are having trouble even imagining the future, And the future is very uncertain and scary. It can be a pretty radical act to say, I'm going to create this myself. I'm going to go out and do it myself. From growing milkweed to taking up unproductive hobbies,

they make the case that doing something for its own sake shouldn't need defending. That's coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Conversation of the Day. Things that are really important for us are not easy, like getting together with friends, allowing your kids to go play together without adult supervision. These are not easy. What's easy is to spend a lot of time on products whose designers make money when you spend a lot of time with them.

Okay. Catherine, what do people get wrong about productivity? I think we get the whole concept of productivity wrong. To me, I think we tend to think that productivity has to do with money, that if you use time on something and you don't have a quantifiable output, in many cases, financial, then it's not worth it. that you weren't productive. And so what I think about it, I try to think of other ways that you can have a productive use of your time. For example, like if you're just hanging out with a friend and you have a great conversation, why is that not considered productive, right? And I'm curious

about your thoughts in terms of gardening. What is productive? What's not productive? Like the root of productive is to lead forth pro duco, famigate, super dorky and go Latin, right at the beginning of this conversation. But I also just get so tired of when there's the assumption that you need to to have an output of any kind in order to have something be classified as productive. What do you see the connection being between the work that you do and the way that you encourage people to garden for the sake of gardening with our society's obsession with productivity? I do think that the way that most people garden, certainly there are some productive gardeners who are interested in growing like the most humongous pumpkins that have ever been brown. It's always pumpkins. Yeah,

But most of us do it as a way to get away from that culture of productivity, as a break, as almost a form of self-care or even a practice like yoga and meditation. And so it's just it's a healthy way to reconnect to the earth, to reconnect to ourselves, connect to all the other organisms that are around us, and allows people to survive and thrive in this overly productive world. I feel like your work is similar in that we're all sort of caught up in this busyness that is hard to escape. And it can be hard to remember that we need to have fun. And so do you see your work as spreading like anti-productivity? Well, I mean, again, I think it depends what we think of the definition of productivity being. But I do see fun as a respite from this obsession with productivity. I also see this conflict where people will start doing something for fun and then this need for

productivity is so deeply ingrained, they'll turn it into a side hustle. Or like, as a personal example, playing music, like I don't care about performing music for an audience. I just really love playing music, but it's very hard to get adults to just get together to play instead of saying, okay, what's going to be the end product? Like what's the goal? Are we going to produce something even if it's something that's not actually a tangible, like a show?

Do you have suggestions for how to do that? I mean, I can't imagine calling my friends and being like, it's bingo night or something. But is that really as easy as it sounds? Well, I don't think it's easy because I think we all are over-scheduled and we have pretty deep issues when it comes to this, like drive for quote productivity. And that is why it can be useful to recognize

that fun can help you with these other more serious goals that you may have in your life. But I do think it is easier than we often assume and that if you start to think of fun as valuable, then it becomes also easier to take the steps to make it happen. And I remember, for example, like when I gave a talk once, a young woman coming up to me after my talk, and she was saying, you know, I've had this Taco Tuesday night

with my friends for years, and I knew I loved it, but I didn't really realize how valuable it was. I didn't really realize it was almost like a sacred ritual that I have with my friends, because it's the time where we let down our guard, and we actually connect with each other, and we really catch up. And it's kind of a silly concept, you know, Taco Tuesdays, but actually it's one of my favorite moments of the whole week.

And it's a break from all the pressure I put myself under. And it's the time to connect with the people I care about. So I think that it's not as hard as you can have these rituals that aren't that hard to establish that then take on this greater meaning. But I do think that given our cultural obsession with productivity and efficiency and all that, like we do need to step back and say, I'm going to carve out time for this. All right. What's one thing people should incorporate to have a healthier and happier life? I mean, I think everybody, everyone should grow tomatoes and milkweed. Everybody. Tell me more. I think it is such a small gesture, but it really can change people's lives.

Growing tomatoes, you can't buy tomatoes as good as you can grow them. They're just absolutely amazing. And so you really grow them for yourself, for your family, for your friends. And growing milkweed is an offering and a way to give back to the many organisms around you who are struggling, really. And so I think that process, right now when I look at humanity in general, it really does seem like people feel isolated and even sometimes alienated from the natural. world and that sort of gesture, it's a very small gesture of providing a gift back to that natural world can be just a very hopeful, very gentle even form of activism for people to help create the world that they want to see for the future. And then to be able to watch that, to be able to eat those tomatoes, to be able to see who visits those milkweed flowers is really just

absolutely incredible. That's inspiring. Absolutely. There's this bumper sticker that I see sometimes that says, planting a garden means believing in tomorrow. And it's so cheesy, but also very sweet and very true. There's this element of you're helping cultivate the future that you want to create for future generations.

You're helping to literally grow that future. And I think at a time where so many people are having trouble even imagining the future, and the future is very uncertain and scary, it can be very. be a pretty radical act to say, I'm going to create this myself. Yeah. I'm curious about how you would encourage people to be happier and healthier. I think in many ways, I love the gardening idea. I also think just prioritizing fun and that we often think that fun is frivolous or a waste

of time or we think it's irresponsible to prioritize fun in this crazy world that we're living in with so many serious problems. But if you are having fun, then you're filling yourself up with energy. you become much more equipped to deal with hard things in your own life, and you also become a source of energy for other people. And it gives you energy to do stuff to help the world at large. You know, if you're sitting on the couch just doom-scrolling the news, like you actually can't even plant a garden.

You're not going to play that milkweed, because all you're doing is filling your mind with really overwhelming information. And you can make an argument that it's important to stay informed, but at what point is just cross the line to being obsessed and putting stuff that you have no control over into your head. So I think making a conscious effort to create better boundaries with content like that and say, what would fill me up? You know, what would light me up? Because the more we nourish ourselves, the more we can give to others,

and also the more we'll enjoy our own lives, which we're allowed to do. Do you differentiate between fun as the sort of distinct activity where you're going and doing a fun thing? or do you think that it's more important or perhaps both, that people should try to create fun in the actions that they're already having? I think that I would say both, but I always like to distinguish or point out that I think that fun is a feeling. It's not a particular activity. So my definition of fun is that it's the confluence of three different factors,

playfulness, connection, and flow. And each of those is wonderful for us on their own, but when all three are together, it's this magical state of fun. And I think that you can create it in two ways. One is to actually figure out your fun magnets, I call them. So figure out what the activities or the settings or the people are who are most likely to generate that feeling of fun for you and then carve out time and your busy schedule to prioritize those. Another way to approach it is to open yourself up to more spontaneous opportunities for fun where you're like, what can I do to make myself feel

a little more connected right now or a little more in flow or add a bit of playfulness or delight to this situation. And another thing I like about defining fun is playful, connected flow, is what you're getting at, which is that if you have that definition in mind, you can bring a bit of that attitude to preexisting situations. Even a work conversation, like even a Zoom call, you can still bring a little bit more levity or a little bit more connection with people. So I think it's kind of a combination of things, but I think we focus a bit too much on the idea that it is a specific activity because that's when you get into the hole. You have to spend a lot of money to have fun instead of recognizing there's opportunities around us all the time.

And the story that I always have in my mind when I think about that is an anecdote. Someone told me about his own memory of a moment that was really fun. This guy told me he spent 45 minutes sitting on a park bench with his nephew having a ton of fun simply trying to catch leaves as they fell off of a tree. Oh, how lovely. Yeah, and I said to him, I was like, oh my goodness, you just made this very literal, because I always say that, you know, there's opportunities for fun floating around us in the air. We just need to reach out and grab them.

And here you are literally grabbing leaves and fun out of the air. Yeah. So I was grateful to that man. How do you give up control? I think we need to recognize that ultimately we're not that important. Yeah. We're part of this bigger ecosystem. Us trying to cling to control isn't really probably going to help anyone,

including ourselves. So I think constantly reminding myself of that is really useful. And also trying to get clearer as the cliche goes, but just be aware of what you do have control over and what you don't. And then I'd also say I do try in my life to find situations in which I can just try to let go of control, you know, not in the sense of like getting trashed, but more like when can I emotionally just not be conscientious all the time? I'm conscientious all the time. Yeah.

And so this is not exactly an answer to that question, but I have noticed the times for me in which I have the most fun are the moments in which I'm letting go of control and I'm not organizing and I'm not responsible for people and you just have this sense of freedom that can be really energizing. But how about you? I mean, I couldn't agree more. I feel like control can really be a burden. Yeah. Right? And that it really starts with recognizing that and the relief that can come when you do not, when you give up control. I love to spend a lot of time with old trees or just giant trees. I didn't know where I thought you were going with that, but it wasn't with old trees. It's always. Always going towards trees.

But there is a 400-year-old white oak in a cemetery in the Bronx. Really? This tree is massive. It's just humongous. And it's really obvious when you visit this tree who the superior being is. It's like I always want to bring an offering or something like that. And it is so relaxing. It is so just, it's sort of like looking at a mountain or a canyon or the sky to feel that.

smallness and that insignificentness. And it's, yeah, it's just a relief. And I think that process of giving up control can really start with the recognition of how good it feels to not be in charge. Yes. It feels really good. Yeah. What does play mean to you? Oh, such a tough one. I struggle. I struggle with this. I have to admit, I have a 12-year-old. And so I do a lot of like child play. But when it comes to play for me, it's it's much more, it's just so much more difficult to imagine what that actually looks like. I do do ceramics. I do gardening. I do try to create in loose and flow state realms, but I don't know that I would go towards the word play initially. And so I guess I would love some advice. I would love advice. I would love advice.

And how to play as a sort of, I'm very like a whimsical but also neurotic person. I am, yeah, I'm with you on that. I think it's really hard to define play and especially for adults. I think I would say it's doing things for the sake of doing them, doing enjoyable things for the sake of doing them without necessarily needing the outcome to be a particular way. I found it useful to think about the word playfulness as opposed to just play, which is somehow harder for me to pin down, but having a playful spirit and attitude towards things

to me can make anything turn into a form of play. So if you come at life with having kind of a lighthearted attitude or not taking things too seriously or finding ways to laugh or finding ways or situations in which your inner critic can be silent, that to me is what playfulness means and then you can turn any situation into some type of play. But I also think it's interesting.

I remember when I was researching play for my book, The Power of Fun, there is interesting literature around the idea that a play can also, or play can also be defined as like how you behave in a particular situation or sphere that there's sort of kind of like rules governing play that we don't really think about. So like theater is a type of play space. And this is actually kind of tying back to how do you let go of control, actually, just putting it together, is that if you think about a lot of situations in which we play, like even playing sports or playing a game, something that's more traditionally thought.

of his play. The reason that you can have fun is that you can kind of let go a little bit, but the reason you can let go is you know how you're supposed to behave. You know, like you, there's rules to the game. So everyone knows what they can and can't do. And having that structure actually lets people relax a little bit. Yeah. Which I find interesting to think about. Yeah, it makes me think about roughhousing. Watching these kids wrestle pretty aggressively sometimes. Worried me initially. I was like, oh no, someone's going to get hurt. But then we went through this whole process of making sure that they had a word to say if it got too rough. And they were always checking in with each other and making sure that the other person that they were wrestling

with was really okay with the activity that was happening. And it's given them this freedom to have so much more fun in this really wild way that they're inclined towards. And in many realms of school and home life, they're not allowed to behave like that. But once we set those parameters, they had so much more freedom. Right, and they would know if someone went too far. Like, then it wouldn't be play, then it would be too rough. And they kind of know that. Maybe play is also just doing things because they feel fun.

One thing I learned in my research for my book is that across the animal kingdom, scientists have observed play-like behavior and basically insects on up. Oh, yeah. Which is kind of nuts. Bumblebees. Bumblebees are like so playful. There's a great study. where they had all these little bumblebees and these little wooden balls,

and they had this path towards sugar water. And the bumble bees would, especially younger bumblebees, would go off to the side and just play with balls and then go to the path for no reason whatsoever. That's amazing. I had not heard that. Just for fun. I love that. When you look at bumblebees and you think about them as pollinators, they are unusually smart and they like puzzles. There's generalist flowers, if you think of a sunflowers,

It's really open, and the pollen and the nectar are really accessible. You could be a beetle, you could be a butterfly. Any species can come and get those resources. Other flowers, like pea flowers or even something like a gentian or an orchid, you have to know how to solve a puzzle in order to get to the pollen and the nectar. And bumblebees are excellent at that. They can literally unscrew a bottle. There's a research study showing that bumblebees can figure that out.

And so a lot of flowers have locked. in key mechanisms, and bumblebees are just, they're curious. And yeah, they like to have fun. And I wonder if those two elements, I mean, it must be an evolutionary advantage. Right, right. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I did not know that. I'm imagining little like escape rooms for bumblebees now. I think that's like a whole field of research. You heard it here first. Yeah. Okay. All right. In a world design to make everything as easy, as possible. Why is friction an important thing to incorporate into your life?

Well, I think I would push back on the premise of that question, which is that I don't think everything's designed to be as easy as possible. I know what the question is trying to ask, but I do want to push back on that because things that are really important for us are not easy, like getting together with friends or like allowing your kids to go play together without adult supervision. Like these are not easy. What's easy is to spend a lot of time on products whose designers make money when you spend a lot of time on them. It's very easy to scroll through social media. It's very easy to stay on the news, you know?

So I think that the first thing is to say, well, what actually is easy? And then I would say the reason that friction is so important is because a lot of the most valuable things in life, first of all, are a bit harder to achieve. Or I don't want to say achieve because that sounds too production-oriented, but to experience. But then I would also say that it's really important because right now we're in a very lopsided situation where you do have huge companies that are deliberately removing friction, quote unquote, so that we will spend more and more time staring at our screens as opposed to being out experience in the world. So as an example, whenever I help people break up with their phones, I ask them, what are some of your goals? So many people say I want to get back to reading. You know, I really miss reading.

And I'm like, okay, well, what do you do before bed? Scroll through your phone. And I use my phone as an alarm clock. And I'm like, okay, well, if you take your phone out of your bedroom, which is advice everybody has heard, but nobody does. But if you get it out of your bedroom, that's adding friction so that it's now harder to reach for your phone because you'd have to get out of bed and you're cozy and you're not going to want to do.

But also make sure that you put something on your bedside table that you want to do, reduce friction for the things you want to spend time on and add friction for the things you're trying to cut back on. And I've had so many people tell me that getting their phone out of their bedroom and getting an alarm clock has literally, in their words, changed their lives and that they're able to read more and do these hobbies that they thought that they didn't have time for, but they actually did have time for it. It's just that it was so easy to just reach for your phone instead that that's how they, and honestly all of us, are spending our time. So, yeah,

I think it's essential to add friction. But what do you think? I'm inspired to throw my phone out of my bedroom. We'll see if that actually happens. Just get an alarm clock. Okay. All right. I do think that when I think about the world right now, it really seems hard. It seems like there's more friction than even 10 years ago. And I think that there's like, even like getting on an airplane is getting harder and harder. And I feel like the way the economy is there's going to be someone like you have to pay for all these little things. And at some point I imagine they're going to be like, I'm going to just poke you in the head until you pay me $20.

And like they're just inventing things that don't need to be invented so that you have to pay to get rid of them essentially. So it seems like there's so many more steps and so much more friction that we have to deal with just to go grocery shopping that haven't been there in the past. So yeah, I also would push back on the premise. It doesn't feel easeful in life these days. Right. Where should someone start if they want to bring a little more wildness into their life? I mean, I always think people should grow plants. Everyone.

Everyone should grow plants. If they live inside, you can grow houseplants. They're so wonderful. If you have any access to the outside world, even a windowsill or a stoop, you can grow milkweed and golden rub. And it's wonderful to have an excuse to just sit and stare at a flower. And I think that process, again, it's an offering, right? It's not so much about you as something that you are giving back to the other earthlings. in your environment. And that can be really freeing for so many people.

Hmm. How about you, what do you think? How to bring wildness into your life. I think that rebelling a bit is what I would say to that. When I talked to people about their past fun experiences, because I was trying to search around for a better definition for fun than what's in the dictionary, because the dictionary just said it's lighthearted pleasure and amusement. But when I talked to people, there was this deep undercurrent of joy and this sense of connection to other people in a really emotionally powerful way. The one thing that came up again and again was this kind of playful rebellion, kind of breaking the rules a bit. In my TED talk, I talk about breaking the rules of responsible adulthood, you know, giving yourself permission to enjoy your own life. And I don't

think we do that enough. And so I think you can introduce a bit of wildness by just doing something a little bit unconventional or something that, quote, breaks the rules, whether it's the rules you have for yourself or that society is placed on you as an adult. So it could be as simple as saying yourself, you know what, today I am going to take a different path on my way home, or I'm going to leave my phone behind and I'm going to look at the world around me and I'm going to notice the butterflies. Like that's adding, well, in that case, a bit of literal wildness to your life. But I also love the idea of if you're someone who commutes, like don't listen to the news or some podcast to educate yourself. Maybe just listen to a song you really love when you were 17 and just

sing along loudly to yourself and just enjoy that. To me, that's adding a little bit of wildness and a bit of unpredictability to your life. And I think that that is so important and it reminds us of what makes us alive. And I would say that it's a very similar thing as to cultivating actual plants. You know, I really think it's so important for us to do whatever we can to bring out our aliveness and to connect with and respect other people and other creatures aliveness. Yeah. I think that that connection to other creatures is really, really central to a lot of the isolation and loneliness that people feel like we are surrounded by songbirds who are saying

things to each other. Sometimes we can even understand those things. Like there's a bird outside of my house that when my dog comes outside, always makes the same call. And I know what that bird is saying. It's really exciting. And when you start to recognize the trees and the butterflies and the flowers as you walk around, it's literally like you have friends.

You know, I'm always like, hey, hey, I know you. And when I see like a very, very flower, it's like meeting a celebrity. It's just like amazing experience. And I often wonder if much of the isolation that people experience is environmental isolation. is that real break from the natural world and not knowing all of these incredible creatures that are already around us. If you have a lawn and if you live in a place with a lawn,

take a little bit of that lawn away and plant those flowers there. Lawns are so fundamentally about control. They are literally a crew cut, right? It's a crew cut that is happening to the earth. over and over in perpetuity. And they're important. Lawns can be a very good habitat for people, right? They sort of tell people where they belong in a landscape.

But it can also be freeing and rewarding to just push back a little bit on that level of control and to make space for all of the other organisms that are going to use that land aside from people. I love that as a concrete suggestion for how to let go of control. let go of your lawn. Yeah, just a little corner.

You can start with a really small. There's this whole punk rock movement right now of kill your lawn. And it's cool. I support it, but it's not my, you know, I think that lawns are really important for people, right? They can sort of say in a landscape, especially a park, this is where you belong in a landscape. But it doesn't mean that those lawns need to be the default of every single landscape. I think a lot of people have lawn because they don't know. what else to do with land or they are scared that if they stop mowing, a jungle will grow and there

will be snakes. That's a common fear. Really, straight to the snakes. Yes, straight to snakes. But that also makes me think of like the lawn as a play space, like what we were talking about before, where a lawn, you know, if you ask people, what would you do on a lawn? The first things I come to my mind are a picnic or cartwheels or flag football or something. Like the space itself can give us permission to play, which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it really is a space that, But people get to enjoy it. It's like the habitat for people. Right.

And so, as I said, it's much better to see lawn as an area rug rather than wall-to-wall carpet. It's just that little space that you need. And then you can seed the rest of that for wildlife. And who wants wall-to-wall carpet these days? That's very 1970s. It's true. Thank you, Catherine. That was so lovely.

And I learned a lot. And I'm inspired to get rid of my phone and have more fun. Thank you, Rebecca. I am going to plant a tomato and some milkweed. That was a conversation between Rebecca McMacken and Catherine Price for our original series TED Intersections. Visit TED.com to watch this conversation and others from the series. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit TED.com slash curation guidelines.

And that's it for today. Ted Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was fact-checked by the TED research team and produced and edited by our team. Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Tobner, and Tonzica Sungmar Nivol. Additional support from Daniela Balerozzo,

Christopher Faisi Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Ban-Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lot. Learn more at podcasts.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet.

Thanks for listening.