Staff Writer Alfie Ray reflects on his and other students’ experience of “toxic productivity,” giving insight into how this affects student life and sharing some tips to help manage academic anxiety.
I distinctly remember the day that I entered university life.
It was around two weeks after Fresher’s Week. Like most days at the start of term, I woke up feeling groggy (slightly hungover) as the cool morning fog set upon my criss cross windowpanes. After reluctantly dragging myself out of bed, I got up, had breakfast, showered and headed to a full day’s worth of classes.
Whilst I stopped home for lunch around midday, I spent pretty much all of my day studying on campus and so, as the early evening October sunset set in, I was ready to head home and relax. Bursting through the door, I leapt onto my bed ready for my much-deserved Minecraft time, time that I’d longed for pretty much all day as I mentally plotted out my next over-ambitious build.
Turning my Xbox on, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of discomfort, as if something was wrong. As if something was incomplete.
My desk grinned at me. My pencil case whispered. My laptop cried.
They wanted me to work, to be “productive” and so, being the scholarly university student I thought I was, I worked.
From that point on, any time that I would sit down to relax or decompress, my body would be filled with that same sense of discomfort, that uncontrollable urge to study, that feeling that no matter how hard I work, it’ll never be enough.
From that point on, I would succumb to that urge.
My Minecraft evenings quickly became Minecraft minutes, as I sank more and more of my time into an endless void of extended reading lists and extracurricular work.
My life was, pretty much, taken over by this compulsion to be productive.
As it turns out, I’m not the only student whose life has been overrun by a constant urge to work, in fact, according to a 2026 study from Universitas Jenderal Soedirman, over sixty percent of students face this same burden, with half of students regularly neglecting basic needs, like sleep, to keep up with study.
Sure, we’ve all heard about people pulling the odd all-nighter here and there, but there has to be something seriously wrong with the culture of university education if students are missing out on basic necessities for the sake of study…
So, what actually is the problem?
Introducing my Nemesis: Toxic Productivity…
Thankfully (?), this constant dark urge to be productive has an, equally sinister, name: “Toxic Productivity.”
Research into this phenomenon has been going on for decades, with American psychologist Wayne Oates popularising the term “workaholism”, in the 1960s, to describe his own addiction to working.
In more recent times, this concept has developed into the notion of toxic productivity, which Nathalie Dattilo, Clinical Psychologist and Instructor at Harvard Medical School, defines as an “obsessive preoccupation with being productive at all costs – and never feeling like what you’ve done is “enough””.
Of course, it isn’t only university students who suffer from toxic productivity. According to Dattilo, this is a common issue in most modern workplaces, especially in the age of remote working, where employees are increasingly responsible for every minute of their working day.
Nonetheless, being the small-minded, slightly insular university student that I am, I’m going to keep the focus of this article strictly on the experience of university students because, let’s face it, most of you reading this are probably a student in some sense of the word.
With this in mind, I spoke to twelve undergraduate students from universities across the UK to get a sense of just how badly toxic productivity is affecting their lives, with the hopes that, by the end of this piece, I can hopefully shine some light on how to overcome this brutal burden.
How Does Toxic Productivity Affect UK Students?
As I’ve already touched on, one of the greatest pressures that the feeling of toxic productivity ushers in is a sort of constant nagging, like your body is telling you that it can’t rest yet, that it needs to do more work.
For me, this feeling is accompanied by a general restlessness. My legs start to twitch, and my fingers tap as my brain becomes filled with ideas and plans to maximise the efficiency of my free time.
Whilst, at times, this urge can motivate me to do some of my best work, it can often feel quite paralysing as I waste hours debating over whether I should listen to the nagging feeling or give my mind a much-deserved break.
Emily, a 19-year-old student from the University of Cardiff, told me she had a similar experience as, whilst she frequently feels the need to be productive, independent living is making this hard for her:
“The feeling of wanting to be productive has increased but I think the motivation to has decreased since living independently as I feel there is no one holding me accountable to be productive.”
The issue of motivation is a cruel mistress in the world of toxic productivity.
Whilst some students, like Emily, struggle to act on their desires to be productive due to a lack of motivation, some students suffer from being overly motivated.
One Undergraduate student from King’s College London (KCL) told me this:
“My “success” in my degree is based entirely on me, rather than in any degree on the ability of course tutors to support me and provide me education in a way that is thought-provoking and challenging to my world view. As such, any “lost” time, due to working, socialising, cooking food, looking after myself or the house, is time that I’m always conscious I could be spending studying.”
Here we can see how toxic productivity can impact more than just the amount of Minecraft time someone may have in their day.
This feeling that success is entirely dependent on self-productivity, leads students, like this KCL undergraduate, to neglect major aspects of their life which, as you can, imagine, can be quite isolating.
Another student I spoke to feels that this sort of isolation can actually reinforce their toxic productivity, fearing that their possible lack of knowledge may lead to further alienation.
“I listen to other students’ responses in seminars and feel a genuine impostor syndrome, as though I am not equal to my peers, and so I try as hard as I can to read a lot of extra articles/books/etc to make up for this gap.” KCL Undergraduate
Whilst these two students might have experienced different forms of isolation as a result of their toxic productivity, it is clear that toxic productivity induces a vicious cycle within the minds of students.
By the logic of toxic productivity, if you spend too much time socialising, you’ll fall behind academically and yet, as we can see in these responses, the social impact that comes from this sort of academic anxiety might be the true killer.
Or is it?
This is Turning into a Real Whodunnit.
What is causing this toxic productivity? Who is to blame for these urges? Why do we feel them?
Like any good investigation, there are multiple suspects in my investigation so, let’s meet the line up.
Social Media:
A common scapegoat for many modern issues, social media is a prime suspect in this investigation. Across social media, “studytok” creators like @studywithlizzz, share tips and secrets for maximising student productivity, organisation and efficiency.
University Culture:
Universities are (obviously) geared to promoting study. Be it libraries, giant posters of smiling students or constant reminders that your assignments are due, collegiate culture could be a clear-cut culprit.
Friends:
Everyone needs them, most people have them, but no one ever asks if they’re secretly stoking the hellish fire that is toxic productivity.
Independent Living:
Living alone can be fun. You get to come home as late as you want and no one is going to complain if your bed isn’t made. But when you’re sat at your desk with no parent to check in on how your study is going, I bet you miss home, right?
Yourself:
Huh? Well, this one makes no sense… Surely?
Court is in Session.
Like any good judge, I have assembled a jury of 12 students (and some academic evidence) to try and decide what the cause of toxic productivity really is.
Let’s start with the obvious suspect: social media.
Surprisingly, social media didn’t seem to have that great of an impact on the students that I surveyed.
Whilst the researchers from Universitas Jenderal Soedierman found that social media platforms increase issues of toxic productivity by creating unrealistic ideals of productivity, most of the students I spoke to said that they only occasionally interacted with this study content online and that, when they did, they often found these tips helpful.
“I think productivity content was useful for me at a particular stage because I needed someone to give me direction, but as I developed my own habits and learned what works for me, I became less dependent on it” – Achraf, 19, University of the West of England, Bristol
There was a similar consensus towards the effects of university culture and independent living, with some students feeling that their university puts effective measures in place to reduce toxic productivity.
“Despite my university emphasizing the need for independent study, they very much also focus on taking care of mental health and student wellbeing, attempting to ensure students don’t burn out / outwork themselves.” Rivkah, 20, KCL
So that just leaves two possible culprits, friendship and the self.
Interestingly, when I asked these students to rank each of these factors in order of most to least likely to drive their toxic productivity, 33 percent of them said that friends had the least effect on them.
However, it’s undeniable that friendships played a role in many of these student’s experiences with toxic productivity.
One KCL Undergraduate said that seeing their friends do well in assignments encourages them to work harder.
“They [my friends] tend to do much better than me in terms of grades and completing assignments on time. This compels me to do more from an ego standpoint, as well as realisation (ibid) that I am falling behind in work.”
Other students, like Achraf, seemed to have a similar experience.
“Seeing other people doing well or putting a lot of effort into their studies can motivate me to work harder because I want to perform well myself and ideally be among the top of the class.”
Among these responses, as well as the various others I received, emerged one trend – the issue of the ego.
Time and time again, students mentioned that they wanted to do well to compete with others or that their toxic productivity stemmed from their desire to get a leg up in life.
Their toxic desires to be productive didn’t come from someone directly telling them to be productive, but rather an internal feeling that they should be productive.
However, toxic productivity is not entirely an individual issue, if it was, there wouldn’t be so many students suffering from it.
The researchers from Universitas Jenderal Soedierman, who studied a much larger sample size of 233 undergraduate students, found that, whilst factors like the self and friendships played a role in motivating individual toxic productivity, they do not exist in a vacuum.
“In the context of higher education, toxic productivity does not emerge solely as an individual psychological issue, but also as a product of institutional structures and campus cultures that normalize excessive engagement.”
Like many contemporary problems, toxic productivity is a systematic issue that would require a great deal of work to dismantle entirely, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps we can take to try and individually overcome it.
How to Detoxify Your Productivity.
As I talked about earlier, in recent years there has been a surge of research into toxic productivity, meaning that, thankfully, some good solutions have also been developed.
In an interview with Harvard Woman’s Health Watch, psychologist Natalie Dattilo recommends several useful techniques that you can use to fight toxic productivity.
One of the easiest ways to try and combat toxic productivity is to simply sit and do nothing. See how long it takes you to get the itch to be productive and note it down, repeat the practise every day with the goal of trying to increase that time bit by bit, after a few months you should be able to get more comfortable with the notion of doing nothing and your urges might go away.
Dattilo also advises that journalling might help you overcome your toxic productivity. By taking the time to write your feelings down, you give your brain space to reflect on why you feel the urge to be so productive. Over time, you might be able to get a better understanding of your relationship to study and, from that, take steps to improve that relationship.
The next few tips come from my personal experience battling toxic productivity, so take them with a heavy pinch of salt…
In my experience, I’ve found that exercise really helps me to overcome the urge to be productive. A nice walk not only can give you space to reflect on your emotions, but can also help you burn some energy, meaning that your body might be a bit less restless when you try to relax.
However, what I feel like has helped me to overcome my issues with toxic productivity the most, is reframing how I view time. Whilst it might not seem like it, putting more time into something, doesn’t automatically make you better at it.
I believe that, in the UK education system, we are essentially trained to waste as much time at school as we possibly can. Before university, we would go into school at 8:30 and leave at 15:30. Whilst we would be at school for seven hours, not all of that time was spent being productive and, in fact, I would argue that less than half of our time was spent actually learning things.
In contrast, at university, most of your time is yours to fill, meaning that you have a choice: use your time efficiently, or study for seven hours and get completely burnt out. You may feel the urge to study for as long as you would have been at school, but I think that, if you work effectively, you can complete your work in a lot less than seven hours.
By reframing how I viewed time, I learnt that if I work for too long, I take in less than I would have if I worked quickly and efficiently. This helped me recognise that I put enough time into my education and that I deserve my Minecraft time.
If you take one thing from this article, it’s that you need to ignore that constant urge to be productive. It will be hard at times, and you won’t always be able to resist it, but trying is the first step towards changing your attitude to study and hopefully building a better future for yourself (a future in which you can play lots of Minecraft).
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