Before the start of 2026, I took a pause from everything. I wanted to find out who I was and who I wanted to show up as, outside of my work, my achievements and any accolade attached to my name.
I had many conversations with friends during that season. I remember telling my friend, Des, that I just wanted to exist without being tied to titles or achievements. I wanted to be Precious, a girl who is known and loved by Jesus.
When achievements become your identity
None of those achievements or titles were bad. The problem was that I kept rooting my identity in them. Whenever things didn’t work out, I felt useless, inferior and incomplete. I stopped feeling proud of small wins because they didn’t outclass things I had done in the past, even though they were still worth celebrating.
Looking back, I think success had become a kind of idol for me. If something didn’t work out in the best possible way, I saw no reason to talk about it at all.
If you’re a student who measures yourself by your grades, or a professional who feels only as good as your last performance review, you probably recognise this feeling.
Defining your own metrics of success
What shifted things for me was something my dear friend Fisayo said: you have the ability to “define your metrics of success.”
That idea gave me permission to stop measuring my life against my past highlights or against other people. So that is what I’ve chosen to do, starting with telling my story as authentically as I can. No one else can tell it for me.
This way of thinking has also changed how I think about productivity, which is the work I do every day with clients at Maximising Chronos.
Why productivity without purpose doesn’t last
When people hear the word productivity, they quickly look for what to do: the right app, the perfect morning routine, a better to-do list. Those things help, but they skip the first and most important piece, which is the mindset behind the action.
Every productive person is a purposeful person. There is always a why behind the how and the what. Simon Sinek made this idea popular in his TED talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, where he argues that people and organisations who start with why are the ones who inspire lasting commitment. The same principle applies to how you manage your own time.
Without a clear reason to act, you get wound up in activity and quickly run out of gas. You stay busy, but you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.
How value creates urgency
Placing value on each activity on your timetable is what pushes you to get it done. When you value something, you naturally bring urgency to it. Your regard for a task shapes how you respond when its reminder pops up on your phone.
Think about it. Your urgency is high when you have a flight to catch, a job interview or an assignment deadline. It drops when the task is something mundane like doing the dishes. That difference comes down to value. No one wants to miss their flight or face the music with a lecturer when the assignment isn’t turned in.
Psychology supports this. Self-determination theory, one of the most widely studied frameworks on motivation, separates motivation that comes from personal meaning from motivation driven by outside pressure. When you act because something genuinely matters to you, you are more likely to keep going when things get hard.
This is why discipline alone rarely fixes procrastination. If a task keeps sliding down your list, try asking a different question. Instead of “How do I force myself to do this?”, ask “Why does this matter to me?”
How to find your why: a simple exercise
Identifying your why is the most important step toward productivity that lasts, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. Set aside 20 minutes today and work through these steps:
- Choose one goal you’re currently working on. It could be finishing your degree, getting a promotion, launching a side project or building a healthier routine.
- Ask yourself why you want it, and write down the first answer that comes to mind.
- Ask why again, and keep going. By the third or fourth answer, you usually move past surface reasons like “because I’m supposed to” and reach something that actually moves you.
- Check whether your answer depends on outside approval. If it does, look for a reason rooted in who you want to be rather than what others will think.
- Put your why somewhere you’ll see it often, such as your planner, your phone’s lock screen or the top of your weekly plan.
If you want to go further, this Harvard Business Review article, From Purpose to Impact, walks through how people write personal purpose statements that guide their everyday decisions.
Start with your why today
The most productive people I know don’t simply do more. They do what matters to them, and they know exactly why it matters. Once your why is clear, your timetable stops feeling like a list of obligations and starts reflecting what you value.
So, as a first step, take some time today to identify your why. Everything else becomes easier once you know it.
If you want help building a planning routine that actually sticks, Maximising Chronos runs productivity coaching in cohorts for professionals and students who want to take their time back. Check out our services.
