Are we all in a rat race to win the imaginary title of ‘Productivity champion’? Today, being productive has less to do with completing actual tasks and more with presenting oneself as productive. This has become the forefront content on several social media platforms, compelling people to be in a constant battle to measure how much they achieve.

Toxic productivity culture has been pushed down by short-form videos that seem almost bizarre for a normal person to achieve. Showing off his dedication to running, Instagram influencer David Goggins, with a massive following of almost 14 million, shared a photo of his bare foot covered with blisters, skin actually peeling off, a result of his own ‘productivity’.

Physical fitness is not the only area to which this culture is applicable; academia has its own take on it as well.

Videos titled ‘Study with me for 12 hours’, ‘Pulling an all-nighter for exams’ and ‘Study till the candle melts’ are some of the actual trends that garner huge attention online with people replicating them. Through them, people feel the internalised pressure to keep up with what others are doing rather than studying at their own pace.

Some apps have been catalysts in accelerating this culture, pushing the narrative of optimising time every single day. Paired with online crazes, they become the ultimate combination for quantifying work by the number of tasks completed, resulting in what users term ‘productivity drain’.

Extreme takes on efficiency raise the question of when pushing yourself crosses the line between healthy ambition and toxic productivity.

Ashma Bhandari, an Instagram influencer specialising in fitness content, primarily running, shares when productivity becomes unhealthy.

“We live in such a fast-paced world that if you’re not doing something or being productive, we feel like someone will take our place. Social media has become the driving factor for it; we see everyone doing something, and the pressure just increases,” shares Bhandari.

While creators like her use online platforms to share fitness routines light-heartedly, some purposefully curate their captions to negatively instil a ‘fear of not putting in the effort for physical health’.

She claims, “Productivity becomes toxic when you feel guilty for taking rest, or you define your entire self-worth around it. Learning to keep that balance and giving yourself a pat on the back even after small accomplishments should be the way to go.”

According to Bhandari, challenges such as ‘75 hard’ or ‘being fit in 30 days’ are not attainable by most people, but seeing creators doing it on social media hampers the confidence of the younger generation.

To tackle the problem of letting healthy ambition turn into toxic productivity, Bhandari expresses, “I have days too when I give it my all and still feel like maybe I’m not enough. Living away from home with so many responsibilities definitely gets to you. But I constantly remind myself that my body, my mind and my health are more important than anything. I take days off when I need to. I take two steps back whenever I feel burnt out.”

Likewise, another creator and the founder of Kathaharu Productions, Shashank Shrestha, fell down this spiral himself.

“The slippery slope begins when you start celebrating grinding and crunching a little too much. I used to see all-nighters and working from dawn to dusk as a badge of honour, but it took a lot of burnout to realise they were more of a sign of poor resource management. If one aspect of your life—whether work, hobby or social engagement—takes over your entire life, I think that is when you need to take a pause and assess.”

For Shrestha, productivity has always been about utilising the time he has while ensuring he gets the space to experiment.

“My day job is running a production company (Kathaharu), and our work demands that we adhere to strict deadlines. So I approach productivity with how we can allot proper effort and resources to stick to the timeline we have,” says Shrestha.

He also believes that social media has changed the way people view productivity: “The platforms have pushed a lot of people to curate their lives. I honestly feel people only see global wins or something superhuman as the mark of success. While the fact remains, these stories are very rare. Plus, this is only one version of success; there is a lot less celebrating done for someone who is doing their day-to-day work and finding time to just relax with family—but that is not as clickworthy.”

“I think putting more positive messages out and also being transparent about one’s process goes a long way in helping the audience make informed and conscious decisions,” Shrestha claims, firmly believing in trying not to put anything that shames people or makes fun of someone for starting something new.

Similarly, students’ opinions align with those of content creators. Shreedhara Nepal, 18, feels guilty when she watches toxic productivity reels and posts.

“When I see people posting routines where they study almost the whole day, wake up extremely early, and seem to have everything under control, it makes me feel like I am not doing enough, even when I am already tired and working hard,” says Nepal.

Moreover, it refrains her from enjoying any form of entertainment in her daily routine. According to Nepal, the glorification of always doing something has conditioned students like her to feel a sense of emptiness even while resting, when rest itself is crucial for effective memory retention.

While social media users like them face the consequences of toxic productivity firsthand, there are also creators who understand how to balance productivity content with realism. The ones who are vulnerable about their failures, whether it’s about halting the 75-day hard challenge or showing how they try to take breaks between study periods, make productivity content more inspirational rather than fostering an unhealthy culture.