3 Mistakes I Made Trying to Be More Productive

I'm going to be real with you. When I first got obsessed with productivity, I thought I was crushing it. Color-coded planners, 5 AM alarms, 40-tab browser setups, yeah I was that person. But instead of skyrocketing success, I found myself overwhelmed, exhausted, and somehow less productive. So today, I am sharing the 3 biggest mistakes I made on my so-called "productive journey," and how you can avoid falling into the same traps.

Mistake #1: Treating Productivity Lika a Personality Trait

I used to think productive people were just built different. Like, they were born knowing how to wake up early and get 47 things done before breakfast. So I tried to force myself into that mold.

• I copied morning routines from millionaire YouTubers: cold showers, journaling, meditation, reading a book, and working out all before 7 AM. And then I'd be asleep on my keyboard by noon.

• I bought productivity planners like they were lottery tickets. "This one has time blocking! This one has priority matrices! Surely this one will change my life!"

But here's the truth: productivity isn't a personality. It's a skill. It's not about becoming a different person, it's about finding what actually works for you and leaning into that. You don't have to wake up early to be successful. You just have to work with your own energy, not against it.

Lesson: You don't need to be productive, you need to build productive systems that match your life.

Mistake #2: Thinking More = Better

For a while, I thought productivity meant doing more. More tasks, more projects, more hustle. I treated my to-do list like a scoreboard. If I wasn't juggling five major goals at once, I felt like I wasn't "really trying."

Spoiler alert: I got a lot of stuff started, and almost nothing finished.

• I joined productivity challenges, built vision boards, downloaded goal trackers, but I didn't have a clear why for half of what I was doing.

• I'd check 12 things off my list, but somehow never touched the one thing that actually mattered. You know, the needle-mover? The income-generating, dream-building, big-picture goal? Yeah, that one stayed buried.

Eventually, I realized: doing more stuff doesn't mean you're being productive, it just means you're busy. There's a huge difference between motion and progress.

Lesson: Productivity isn't about doing more, it's about doing what matters.

Mistake #3: Believing I Could "Hack" My Way Out of Burnout

Look, I love a good hack. I'm all for time-saving tips and habit-stacking magic. But I made the mistake of thinking I could optimize my way out of burnout.

• "I'll just automate this."

• "I'll just drink more caffeine."

• "I'll just power through until the weekend."

Except the weekend never came, because I kept filling it with catch-up tasks.

I was ignoring my body, my mental health, and every red flag waving in my face. I had built a productivity system that had no space for being human.

Eventually I hit a wall. And here's what I learned: no amount of clever tricks or beautiful apps will save you if you're constantly running on empty.

Lesson: You don't need another productivity hack, you need rest, boundaries, and grace.

If any of these mistakes hit a little too close to home, welcome to the club. You're not failing. You're learning.

Here's what I do now:

• I focus on 3 goals at a time, max.

• I build my schedule around my energy, not someone else's ideal.

• I leave white space in my calendar on purpose.

• And I track my impact, not just checkboxes.

So if you're feeling overwhelmed by all the "productivity noise" out there, pause. Re-evaluate. You might not need to do more. You might need to do less, but better.

And hey, if you liked this post check out my free SMART Goals template. It's not magic, but it is a system that helped me cut the noise and focus on what matters.

See you in the next post, where we talk about why your dream doesn't need a perfect plan, it just needs a starting point.