Is Hyper-Efficiency Stealing Your Joy? – Why Are We Still Doing That?
No Vacation Required
Updated 09/2026
If you were to look at our calendar on any given day, you might think we have it all figured out. But if we are being completely honest, we still have nights where we look at each other and laugh about the ridiculous amount of things we thought we could accomplish in a single day.
We live in a culture that tells us the ultimate goal is efficiency. We are told to outsource our chores, optimize our schedules, and buy back our time. But what are we actually saving all this time for?
This week, we are revisiting a conversation about redefining success. We are diving into why "efficiency culture" might actually be making us miserable, why making your own oatmeal from scratch + fulfillment, and why wanting more money usually just means you are craving more freedom.
Onward and Inward,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓Why does "buying back my time" make me feel more stressed? We live in an efficiency culture that encourages us to outsource basic human tasks – like cooking, cleaning, or running errands – so we can work more. Ironically, these "chores" are often the very things that regulate our nervous systems and bring us a sense of grounded fulfillment.
❓What is "workism"? Workism is the belief that work is not just necessary for economic survival, but the centerpiece of one's identity and life's purpose. It leads us to optimize our personal lives solely so we can be more productive for our employers.
❓Do I really need more money, or just more freedom? If your basic needs are met, the desire for "more money" is usually a masked desire for more freedom. True fulfillment often comes from stepping off the endless earning treadmill and choosing to reclaim your time instead.
❓How can I start reclaiming my time today? Start small. Instead of optimizing a task out of your existence, lean into it. Make the meal from scratch or walk to pick up the meal you ordered instead of having it delivered. Embrace the things that take time.
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Introduction: Redefining your measures of success
(00:51) The time trap: Why we never feel like we have enough
(02:54) The efficiency lie: How outsourcing is hurting our health
(05:59) Why doing your own chores actually brings joy
(09:33) Money vs. Freedom: What you actually want
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LINKS AND RESOURCES
🔗 Efficiency is Taking Too much Time: https://novacationrequired.com/blog/efficiency-is-taking-too-much-time
TRANSCRIPT
Kent (00:00)
Welcome. We're talking about measures of success and that you, we, we all, get to define our own measures of success. And right away I want to encourage you to, if you haven't read our last couple posts, do that. One is on defining success in terms of career. the most recent one is on
Kent (00:25)
Defining success regarding time, which scratches the itch that most people have needing and wanting more time. And our previous podcast, we talk a lot about redefining how you define success in relationships. But we have a few things to say about time, don't we?
Caanan (00:51)
We do. Kent and I have more time than most people have. I mean, we have the same twenty-four hours in a day that everybody else is burdened with. But
Caanan (01:02)
I'm very proud of us because through all of the work we've done over the years, we've done a lot to make sure that we have time for each other and the things that matter most to us. we have a lot of time, but we're still saddled with the same
Caanan (01:18)
lack of time that everybody else is.
Kent (01:20)
We're ambitious.
Caanan (01:21)
And we're ambitious. so, you know, we have this running joke, I think you mentioned this in the post.
Caanan (01:28)
where at the end of the day we will often say, Well, that was a great day, but I didn't get done so much of what I wanted to get done. And when one or the other of us recap what we thought we could achieve in the day, it's ridiculous. It's I didn't climb that mountain I wanted to climb. Yeah. I didn't do that week's worth of work that I thought I could get done
Caanan (01:56)
in the last two hours of the day. So we're always joking about that. And I just want to point out that we've got ideas for how to recapture some time for yourself and focus on what matters most to you. But hand to God, this is a hard one and it's something that fifteen years into no vacation required, we still struggle with.
Kent (02:18)
Yeah, and time is an important one because we're getting increasingly hyper-productive in society, and it leads to sort other maladaptions that I'm excited to talk about today.
Kent (02:33)
In everything we've done, in our personal lives and as sought after business and career development consultants, we've learned one consistent thing. Most people just don't know themselves. NoVacationRequired.com is where we talk about how you too can build a life that you don't need a break from and how it all starts with knowing yourself.
Kent (02:54)
So check out our latest post. We get into time a lot. And this is something we've done over the decades so much client work on because as we said in the last podcast, everybody wants more time. and there's some really fun sort of time mapping exercises that we won't get into in this podcast, but really reveal how
Kent (03:20)
You're using time. Yeah. And if you read that post, you'll see that a big part of the problem is that we've become so efficiency focused that we in fact have eliminated the things that bring us joy and that actually, yeah, I'm gonna say it, take time. But you need to do things that take time
Kent (03:45)
In order to feel human, in order to regulate your nervous system. So, as we talk about in the post, you know, companies offering lunch and dinner so you can work right through them, and people are ordering their food to be delivered and they're outsourcing chores. And this has a much longer negative reach than just
Kent (04:13)
Time. Caanan you want to talk about this.
Caanan (04:16)
Yeah,
Caanan (04:16)
I have this note here that the American Psychology Association talks about how astronomically high stress is. Yes. Right now. I don't have the figures in front of me, but believe me, they're like jaw-dropping. and it's funny because we live in a time where we can pretty much outsource every aspect of our life. Yeah.
Caanan (04:39)
And we're constantly being told that by doing that, we'll have more time. Yeah,
Kent (04:43)
You refer to it as efficiency culture often.
Caanan (04:46)
efficiency culture. So this whole notion of outsourcing to get more time, of optimizing to get more time, of having greater efficiency so you have more time is a total lie.
Caanan (05:00)
Yeah. It's an absolute lie. We all know we don't get more time when we outsource these things that are supposedly negative, doing your own laundry, making your own dinner, going grocery shopping, I think in the post you say buying stamps. I don't know if anybody still buys stamps, but these are the voting, these are the chores. Okay, you can't outsource voting, but
Caanan (05:25)
People just don't do it anymore because you can't outsource it. right? Yeah. There's the lie that outsourcing and efficiency-izing will give you more time. And there's also the lie that the things you're being told are negative in your life, chores, are things you should get rid of. And
Caanan (05:50)
They are not, in fact, Kent, you just said it. These are the things that if you take the time to do, they actually bring you joy and they actually make you healthier.
Kent (05:59)
Yeah, and Caanan is extremely passionate about this for a lot of reasons. This is the the actual fourth big thing. You know, we've been talking about this for couple podcasts, a couple posts now. People want better careers, which we've talked about, better relationships. We've hit on that too. more time as we're talking about now and in the last posts.
Kent (06:25)
But the fourth one is better health. And as Caanan is saying, there's this link between this hyper-efficiency culture and declining health metrics.
Caanan (06:40)
Yeah. I and you know, we're not saying that you need to churn your own butter, although if you want to do that, that would probably be really fulfilling.
Caanan (06:47)
But you do need to look at the very things that you're being told you need to optimize out of your life and say, Wait, this is backwards. I need to be doing things that allow me to work less so that I can spend more time doing
Caanan (07:06)
I'll just call them what they are, chores, because those things bring me joy. They make me fulfilled. Yes. They make me feel productive. And they make me healthier.
Kent (07:15)
Yes, because you know, way back in the day we glommed onto the unhealthy idea of workism. Go back and listen to all our episodes of the Stop Hating Mondays podcast. Because you know what you're being efficient for. You're being efficient so that you can do more work. And your employer knows it. So turning this around is very important.
Caanan (07:43)
And you know why you're working more? This is so sick. You're working more so that you can afford to outsource the things that bring you joy. Yeah. How gross is that?
Kent (07:56)
Yeah.
Caanan (07:58)
Next topic. Optimizing your life actually costs a lot of money.
Kent (08:03)
Yeah. Well, it's it's interesting too because also in this post we talk about you know wanting to make wanting to have I gave away the punchline, wanting to have banana bread, and Caanan was like, Let's make it. And you know, in this efficiency culture, the first place your brain goes isn't let's make whatever. so just like Caanan was saying with time, this too
Kent (08:33)
is a constant reminder for us. Let's make our own banana bread. Caanan is passionate about taking the time to make the oatmeal that actually takes time.
Caanan (08:49)
It makes
Caanan (08:49)
me sad. I was just thinking like people became aware of this a little bit during the pandemic when we were forced to take the time and do things for ourselves. And sadly, some of those important lessons have fallen away as we've all gotten back to our productivity efficiency culture. But our advice to you is pretty basic. Do the chores, make the oatmeal.
Caanan (09:18)
these are the things that make for a rich life, not that extra report you got done today.
Caanan (09:26)
Thanks for listening. We'd be honored if you'd subscribe, like, and share. It means the world to us.
Caanan (09:33)
Okay, we want to talk about
Caanan (09:35)
money for a second. I know. It's the least interesting of the five things that people want more of. Yeah. Want to change. but we're gonna keep it short because I have very little patience for talking about money. Yeah. So here's what I'll say about money and can jump in here if something comes to you. But our take is
Caanan (09:58)
Everybody says they want more money.
Caanan (10:00)
Yeah.
Caanan (10:02)
But if you have enough money to cover your fundamental needs, and we are recognizing that a lot of people don't, and that's a tragedy, especially in a country with so much wealth. But if you are fortunate enough to have enough money to cover your basic needs, you don't really want more money.
Caanan (10:26)
What you really want is more freedom. Yeah. Everybody says they want more money, but the things they want more money to spend on are really freedom related things. They want to travel more, they want to see the world, they want this, they want that. So I'm just going to posit that when you think I want more money, you need to stop yourself.
Caanan (10:54)
Again, assuming you have enough to cover your basic needs, and think, No, I really want more freedom. And you know what you do to get more freedom? Focus less on getting more money and do the things that we talked about in the last segment.
Caanan (11:11)
Free yourself up to make your oatmeal. Free yourself up to vacuum your own carpet. Free yours.
Kent (11:17)
yourself up to get bored.
Caanan (11:19)
my God. my God. You know how
Kent (11:23)
By the way, like we need to do that ourselves, but it sounds good, yeah.
Caanan (11:30)
Yeah. We
Kent (11:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Evaluate your your relationship with money. We were we were talking to a dear friend the other week and she said, you know, you guys have always looked at this differently. And we haven't always looked at it differently, but you know, in in these stages of our life together, asking this question, why are we still doing that?
Kent (11:55)
It's definitely a thing we had to evaluate because as Caanan pointed out, we had these upwardly mobile careers, we're hitting all the marks, winning at everything. And when you decide to have different individualized measures of success, you know, you have to look at at money as well. If we're gonna say our relationship is more important or our health is more important,
Kent (12:19)
In our case, the same amount of money wasn't going to be rolling in. So you definitely have to look at this, but the beauty is it's yours to control. Nobody can tell you what success looks like. Well, they can tell you, and you can nod your head and have your own definitions of success regarding all of these things: career, relationship, time, health.
Kent (12:49)
And money.