Toxic productivity is the fixation with doing more and more things, especially to better yourself (do, be, and obtain more), to the point where you feel bad if you don't feel like you've accomplished anything.

The pandemic and working from home actually cause a person to work excessively to pursue "productivity" to the point of neglecting personal physical and mental health, disrupting relationships and social interactions even with those closest to them, demanding too much of oneself to the point of being unrealistic, and experiencing problems when going to take a break because they feel like rest hinders productivity, at which point the person has fallen into what is known as toxic productivity. Shafa Azahra Siregar is a youth advocate who has put so much concern in social issues, including mental health. The stigma on Mental Health back in the day was still far from positive, from there, Shafa decided to speak it out in her first ever writing about “The Importance of Mental Health” that reached more than 50K people worldwide. She has been actively writing and speaking up on her social media about mental health ever since.

Shafa has been involved in several social projects until today. Currently, her running project is in the Education Sector as the CEO of Gerakan Mengajar Desa Indonesia – The biggest education movement which focuses on shaping awareness of education for society in the village. She believes with good education, a good mindset will be formed. Now Gerakan Mengajar Desa Indonesia has impacted more than 15K people across 144 cities/regencies and 30 provinces in Indonesia.

Her movements bring her to experience the thing that she likes too – brainstorming and connecting ideas with lots of people. So, aside from being active in conferences and group discussions, until now, she has been invited and spoken in more than 100 both national and international events This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx