It seems to be a weakness of people who like efficiency to want to make the most of everything. Be it their time, possessions, chores, goals or even someone else's time. This urge mostly plays out when deciding what to do with their resources. Even taking time off requires the most efficient method to recuperate; eventually resulting in the opposite. I’m not sure they're wired this way. I'm one of those over-efficient people myself and it's been the cause of a lot of anxiety and sadness during my adult years. I'm just going to explore it here a little bit because it's been eating at me for the past few weeks.
It usually starts with an indecisive day because so much needs to be done that doesn’t have a deadline or even a timeline that efficiency seems like the only way to go. In the end nothing gets done. Or only one thing gets done. But since it's just one thing, it's never enough for the efficiency-minded. It must always be a lot or nothing. I've never come across an explanation about where such an obligation comes from. Expectations? Probably. They seem to be the best candidate of all. But expectations can still be unreasonable and efficient people have extremely unreasonable expectations of themselves.
The cognitive load that this experience puts me through drains more of my energy than work does. I sometimes realize that I think myself to burnout. Such a strange phenomenon!
I compensate for this need for hyperactivity by continuously eating food and drinking a lot of coffee. Coffee, sigh. The one thing that elevates anxiety especially when there is no anxiety to begin with. It increases heart rate in a situation where I have to sit and work and my body starts to think that I'm in an unsafe place. It's like pseudo anxiety. The stimulant I used to keep myself focused and efficient backfires. It works sometimes, though. Only sometimes that is.
Sometimes I make myself do one thing and just one thing. After its done, I take time off. Even if I don't do something that would help me recuperate. I usually can't remember these things anyways. The next day I feel like I'm a failure at life. That's so against any survival instinct that I can seldom believe that I actually had that thought.
Anyways, I guess I've written down all the things I mustn't do. Maybe it's a good place to start than being sucked in by this problem over and over again.
Cheers.