This year, I stopped being productive. Why is it so hard to come to terms with that? | Otegha Uwagba

When overwork is framed as a virtue, finding yourself grinding to a halt has emotional as well as financial consequences

What have you achieved this year? Perhaps that question causes your chest to swell with pride - or perhaps you are now looking back at the vista of a somewhat disappointing year, good intentions fallen by the wayside, vowing to do better in 2022.

My year is a tale of two halves. I spent the first six months in a frenzy of activity - finishing off and then promoting a book, ticking off solid, bankable achievements, and then ... well, not very much since.

That wasn't the plan: I had imagined that after a long holiday after my book was published, I'd return to full productivity in the autumn, pre-emptively making to-do lists and outlining my goals - but the energy to do those things has yet to materialise. In fact, I have written barely anything in months.

Otegha Uwagba is the author of We Need to Talk About Money and Whites: On Race and Other Falsehoods