The Truth About Play & Productivity: It’s Not What It Sounds Like

Dec 16

On every productivity checklist, there’s one recommendation that still gives me the ick:

“Schedule more play.”

Experts love this advice because switching from focused work to something light and absorbing is one of the easiest ways to reset your brain.

It helps you step out of your own head, process problems in the background, and restore creative energy.

Research backs it up too, play is linked with lower stress, better mood, and more flexible thinking, even at work.

By the definitions the research uses, most of us already “play” during a normal week.
Running. Drawing. Reading. Cooking. Puttering around the house.
Even certain kinds of cleaning when your mind’s allowed to wander.

These are my particular escapes.

So why does the word still make me cringe?

I’m not about to wax poetic.
“Play” doesn’t sound like a skill.
It sounds like slacking off.
On a bad day, it even sounds slightly NSFW.

People talk about it the way they talk about working from home, like we’re all just sitting around, ignoring real work, collecting a paycheck for doing less.

And it rarely feels like something you’re allowed to bring into work.

You need a very specific kind of culture to make that feel safe.
And for the record, I am the culture.
I work for myself, and I still don’t always feel like I’m “allowed” to play.

Writer Oliver Burkeman, who focuses on time and productivity, has pointed out that we usually only permit rest when we can justify it as productive, instead of seeing it as valuable on its own.

That’s probably why “play” lands badly for some of us.

It comes across as something extra, not something essential.

But for people in creative or strategic roles, it’s not extra, it’s how you stay functional, expand your range, and find new ideas instead of running the same three on a loop.

Author and artist Austin Kleon talks about keeping creativity fun and sustainable: treating creative practice as something you show up for regularly, not something you just grind through.

The right kind of play does more for creativity, recovery, and focus than another hour of white-knuckling your inbox ever will.

So “Play” might never be my favorite word.

But if I strip away the label and look at what it actually does for my work, I probably align with it more than I’d like to admit.

Are there any words or phrases you irrationally despise on the surface but secretly live by?