Most activities can be categorized as either consumer or producer.

A consumer activity is an activity during which you consume existing content such as watching a video, reading a book, or browsing the Internet. Depending on the content you consumed, it can be nourishing or leave you with a feeling of emptiness.

A producer activity is an activity during which you produce new content for others to consume such as drawing, writing, cooking, or programming. It is creative and gives you a feeling of accomplishment but requires time, focus, and practice.

Having those two labels lets you see how much time you delegate to each type of activity and spot unbalances1. You can now consciously push toward your preferred ratio of consuming and producing.

  1. You are likely to realize that you do mostly consumer activities. It is perfectly okay and normal: consumer activities are necessary, you cannot produce if you are not nourished by the things you have consumed and they soothe you after a day of work or focus. ↩︎