The Productivity Trap
Or how small business owners sometimes forget how to simply not be busy.
Ask a freelancer how things are going, and the most common answer you’ll hear is: “Busy, busy, busy.” And most of the time, that’s true. Most of the time...
During peak periods, we run at full throttle. Those are the weeks when your calendar is packed, clients are calling, deadlines are looming, and from early morning until late evening you’re creating. Everything is about high productivity. That’s where I thrive: flying through projects, camera in hand, crew around me, and making progress. It gives energy and satisfaction.
But as every freelancer knows, work comes in waves. After a peak, there’s always a dip. One week you’re breaking records, the next week it’s oddly quiet. No emails, no urgent questions, no hectic shooting days. Calmer waters.
And that’s where the second chapter begins.
The second shift
Because calm? That’s just an illusion.
Those quieter periods aren’t for doing nothing — they’re for tackling the mountain of “non-urgent” things you’ve been postponing. My recent list:
Updating work and “behind the scenes” on my portfolio
Writing down idea’s brain storms for personal projects
Getting hands on with gear to getting to know it even better.
Doing test setups and shoot for specific situations
A link-in-bio page of my own, because none of the free offers really fit me
A personal about page that matches my style better than any template ever could
A steadily growing set of public tools I first coded just for myself — but now share openly (and a far bigger private tools page)
Scripts to automatically create new project folders, so I start every job with a clean and consistent structure
An automated backup system that pushes my files safely into the cloud without me having to think about it
Notifications for new camera firmware and software versions, so I’m always up to date without wasting time checking manually
Switching to a new invoicing platform because well... Peppol
An automated weekly newsletter with all news from within my field of work...
… I could go on forever here you have no idea 🫣
This is the phase of low productivity. No client work, but all the background work that keeps your business alive. And honestly? You can spend just as much time on this as on client projects, because these tasks form the very foundation of your efficiency and your future.
Visible and invisible productivity
I’d even call it this: visible productivity and invisible productivity.
The first brings tangible results: deliverables, campaigns, projects.
The second is less visible but just as important: building systems, gaining knowledge, reinforcing your efficiency.
And then there’s a third mode: no productivity. Simply resting. Doing nothing. Letting things be. And that’s exactly where my trap lies.
The empty head
Because as soon as there’s space, my mind wants to fill it again. With new ideas, new projects, new things to build or experiment with. Personal series. Podcasts. A new perspective. Tools. A better workflow. Yet I also know this: it’s often when my head is empty that the best ideas surface. Not to be executed right away — just to be written down for later. That’s something I still need to work on: allowing ideas to ripen without immediately turning them into action.
The trap of proof
Many freelancers will recognize this. We don’t just want to be productive — we want to prove that we’re productive. To clients, to colleagues, sometimes even to ourselves. And social media doesn’t exactly help. In fact, it often creates a distorted picture. You mostly see the successes, the highlights, the output. Rarely the rest, the doubts, or the days when there’s simply nothing to report. That’s one of the reasons I write these articles: to provide a more honest counter-image. Because the world keeps turning, even without our constant output. A week or month without posts, tools, or new projects? Nobody’s collapsing. Clients will still come back. And you? You’ll return with more energy, more creativity, more drive. Fresh!
The creation drive
There’s another layer to all of this. Because not everything I do comes from the urge to “be productive.” A lot of it is simply the drive to create. For me, it’s almost always about imagery: a photo, a video , a drone shot, a vlog idea, 360° footage… anything that captures or reimagines the world visually. It’s not about output, deadlines, or proving myself, it’s just about documenting things for myself. Archiving a moment, capturing an atmosphere, freezing something I find interesting before it slips away. This has been my main driver all of my life.
But here’s the catch: from the outside, creation and productivity often look the same. A short video, a snapshot, a new tool; people assume it’s part of my work discipline. While in reality, it’s just me following a spark of curiosity. And that can be confusing, even for myself. Am I being productive? Or am I just creating because I can’t not create?
The truth is probably somewhere in between. Creativity fuels my business, but it also fuels me. It’s not always efficient, it’s not always strategic, and it doesn’t always “pay off.” But it keeps me moving, learning, and inspired.
Living in waves
Maybe that’s the lesson I still need to learn: not only to live in waves of work, but also in waves of rest. Rest is not failure. It’s recharging. It’s a crucial and necessary part of running a business.
And I know I’m not alone in this. I see it all around me with fellow freelancers: the same urge to stay busy, the same trap of confusing “doing nothing” with “not being enough.”
So yes, sometimes I should just disappear. No output. No new tool. No extra podcast. Just following my own rhythm. As I once wrote: Riding the waves of the freelance flow — but even more, riding the waves of my own flow.