3 PRODUCTIVE Things I've learned while being in quarantine
Written By: Gen Nguyen | Read full profile
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At the start of this pandemic, I was too. lax. So much so that when I was still taking classes, I would start (some) of my homework and projects the day before it was due. I would also get distracted by TV and Animal Crossing because I didn’t have that luxury when I lived alone in college. When starting this blog, I had trouble writing and even coming up with ideas on what to write. Mostly because I was watching anime at the same time knowing that I can’t multitask.
BUT with a little (big) push from my brother, he helped me overcome that writer’s block. He didn’t do anything fancy or say anything motivating. He just told me to work at his house, so that he can monitor me and make sure I did work. Big brother’s watching.
After working for about 3-4 months on our YouTube channel and website, I have learned these things about my productivity and maybe it’s the same for you:
1. I can NOT work from home.
Maybe the couch isn’t the best place to work and the TV doesn’t help either, but there’s just something about home that makes it an irresistible place to not work at. Anytime I’m home, I find myself slacking off and scrolling through Facebook more often than usual. The amount of “work” I get done is about 90-100% less than when I’m at my brother’s house (a suitable working environment because it doesn’t have that same “home vibe”).
I blame the couch for being too comfy.
2. I need to ENJOY what I’m doing to be productive.
You need to enjoy what you do to produce quality work that’s worthy of being uploaded. You also need to enjoy what you do to be productive. Sometimes I sit at my desk video editing for hours. When it’s something I don’t necessarily enjoy watching or listening to, I find myself standing up and going into the kitchen every so often to look for food to keep my mind occupied. But when I truly enjoy the video I edit (or at least have a spark of inspiration/creativity), I’ll sit at my desk for 8 hours before I realize it’s time to go home.
Same thing happened when I studied for classes I liked learning vs. didn’t care about. One time I studied for my analytical chemistry test but it took me 2 hours to try to understand one concept (that ended up not even being on the exam)...all because I hated analytical chemistry. By the end of the class, I found a new appreciation for it, but it’s still my least favorite chemistry topic. When I studied quantum mechanics (yes, I like quantum mechanics) I was a little bit more productive in my time and probably ended up learning a lot more in that class than I did in analytical chemistry - bleh.
3. Food is my biggest enemy.
The food coma is real. If I eat at my brother’s house, I sleep at my brother’s house. And my naps are usually 2-4 hours long if I sleep on a couch (which he has). So food pretty much impedes my productive workflow. Mainly rice because, fun fact, apparently if you eat a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, your glucose levels can spike up and then quickly U-Turns downhill. This causes you to go into that “food coma” state, making you feel lethargic.
But I’ll still eat rice. Rice is life.
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