Making the days count
A month ago, I had no idea that I'd find myself in the midst of a global pandemic the likes of which nobody alive has ever experienced before.
Like most people reading this, the pandemic has cancelled almost all of the plans I had this year and forced me to spend the past couple of weeks, and probably the next couple of weeks, stuck indoors. For me, this whole situation came out of nowhere. It's been unfortunate, and at times, downright depressing. But in the past couple of days, my tone has started to shift, and as misguided as it may sound, I'm starting to wonder if we should feel grateful for the lockdown.
If you're like me, then your thoughts on the lockdown were probably optimistic at first. Not having all of the commitments you normally do gives you time to focus on yourself and pursue all the things you never had time to before. Hell, when I think about it, having a few weeks with almost nothing urgent to do is something I've been waiting a long time for.
Unfortunately, the reality of the experience was a lot less fun.
You'd think that with no almost no work, academic or social related commitments, we'd be a lot more productive, but paradoxically I found that being suddenly presented with so much free time initially felt overwhelming and led to a lot of time spent doing nothing, in spite of the fact I have full access to the internet, dozens of unread books lying around and loads of other things I could be doing. I did spend a lot of time mindlessly scrolling through social media or playing video games but those weren't the things I wanted to do, those were just the easy things I resorted to out of boredom.
Looking around, my experience doesn't seem all that uncommon. Many people I've spoken to, who don't still have to work or study, have told me that they're playing games all day, binging series' on Netflix, endlessly scrolling through social media or spending all day on video calls with their friends. That is to say, we're just passing the time, waiting and hoping the storm will be over soon.
In the past week however, my experience has changed; the lockdown now doesn't feel as unbearable as it initially did. Before the pandemic I would try to spend as much time as I could outside; with that mindset, being suddenly deprived of the freedom to go out is a painful experience, but after a few weeks, it's something I adjusted to and I've found that overtime I've gotten more accustomed to staying indoors.
Now, having adjusted somewhat to spending more time indoors, I've had a lot of time to reflect on what I was doing before the pandemic and how quickly things changed. What I find interesting is how easy the pandemic made it to cut out so many superfluous things from my daily or weekly routine. In a way, it's like the pandemic has simplified life down to the bare necessities, wake up, eat, sleep, repeat day after day. Unnecessary things have been cut out, and now I'm left with a lot more free time on my hands than I'm used to having.
Having realised that the lockdown has cut out many unnecessary things, I've found the past week to be one of the most productive weeks I've ever had in terms of getting things done that I've been putting off for months or even years.
Of course, not everything we did before the pandemic was unnecessary. I'm not saying it would be a good thing if we all permanently stopped attending work or classes and stopped hanging out with friends in favour of trying to stay home and be productive. There's nothing wrong with having fun and pursuing outdoor hobbies is usually the opposite of wasting time. But in between the good stuff, I think there was a lot of time unnecessarily wasted because too many of us don't realise how limited that time really is. I can't really say that some of my habits were fun or productive so much as they were just stuff to occupy my attention when I felt bored.
So when you think about it, have our habits really changed since the lockdown started?
Before the lockdown, many of us filled our days with distractions to wait out the storm that is life itself. Much like now, many of us are sitting here using Netflix to wait out the lockdown and pandemic. We may have spent as much time trying to escape reality before the lockdown as we are now.
Given that, maybe it's good idea that we don't see this lockdown as just a storm we have to wait out, but rather see this as a rare opportunity that many of us will probably never get again. With so few things we have to do, we now have precious time to decide what we actually want to do.
Not only is this an opportunity to make use of your free time during the lockdown, but reflecting on how easy it was to cut so much out from our lives by staying home, this is also a time to unlearn bad habits we had before the lockdown,
In time, maybe we'll come out of the lockdown with more productive habits and a better appreciation of how to use our time wisely.
Like most people reading this, the pandemic has cancelled almost all of the plans I had this year and forced me to spend the past couple of weeks, and probably the next couple of weeks, stuck indoors. For me, this whole situation came out of nowhere. It's been unfortunate, and at times, downright depressing. But in the past couple of days, my tone has started to shift, and as misguided as it may sound, I'm starting to wonder if we should feel grateful for the lockdown.
If you're like me, then your thoughts on the lockdown were probably optimistic at first. Not having all of the commitments you normally do gives you time to focus on yourself and pursue all the things you never had time to before. Hell, when I think about it, having a few weeks with almost nothing urgent to do is something I've been waiting a long time for.
Unfortunately, the reality of the experience was a lot less fun.
You'd think that with no almost no work, academic or social related commitments, we'd be a lot more productive, but paradoxically I found that being suddenly presented with so much free time initially felt overwhelming and led to a lot of time spent doing nothing, in spite of the fact I have full access to the internet, dozens of unread books lying around and loads of other things I could be doing. I did spend a lot of time mindlessly scrolling through social media or playing video games but those weren't the things I wanted to do, those were just the easy things I resorted to out of boredom.
Looking around, my experience doesn't seem all that uncommon. Many people I've spoken to, who don't still have to work or study, have told me that they're playing games all day, binging series' on Netflix, endlessly scrolling through social media or spending all day on video calls with their friends. That is to say, we're just passing the time, waiting and hoping the storm will be over soon.
In the past week however, my experience has changed; the lockdown now doesn't feel as unbearable as it initially did. Before the pandemic I would try to spend as much time as I could outside; with that mindset, being suddenly deprived of the freedom to go out is a painful experience, but after a few weeks, it's something I adjusted to and I've found that overtime I've gotten more accustomed to staying indoors.
Now, having adjusted somewhat to spending more time indoors, I've had a lot of time to reflect on what I was doing before the pandemic and how quickly things changed. What I find interesting is how easy the pandemic made it to cut out so many superfluous things from my daily or weekly routine. In a way, it's like the pandemic has simplified life down to the bare necessities, wake up, eat, sleep, repeat day after day. Unnecessary things have been cut out, and now I'm left with a lot more free time on my hands than I'm used to having.
Having realised that the lockdown has cut out many unnecessary things, I've found the past week to be one of the most productive weeks I've ever had in terms of getting things done that I've been putting off for months or even years.
Of course, not everything we did before the pandemic was unnecessary. I'm not saying it would be a good thing if we all permanently stopped attending work or classes and stopped hanging out with friends in favour of trying to stay home and be productive. There's nothing wrong with having fun and pursuing outdoor hobbies is usually the opposite of wasting time. But in between the good stuff, I think there was a lot of time unnecessarily wasted because too many of us don't realise how limited that time really is. I can't really say that some of my habits were fun or productive so much as they were just stuff to occupy my attention when I felt bored.
So when you think about it, have our habits really changed since the lockdown started?
Before the lockdown, many of us filled our days with distractions to wait out the storm that is life itself. Much like now, many of us are sitting here using Netflix to wait out the lockdown and pandemic. We may have spent as much time trying to escape reality before the lockdown as we are now.
Given that, maybe it's good idea that we don't see this lockdown as just a storm we have to wait out, but rather see this as a rare opportunity that many of us will probably never get again. With so few things we have to do, we now have precious time to decide what we actually want to do.
Not only is this an opportunity to make use of your free time during the lockdown, but reflecting on how easy it was to cut so much out from our lives by staying home, this is also a time to unlearn bad habits we had before the lockdown,
In time, maybe we'll come out of the lockdown with more productive habits and a better appreciation of how to use our time wisely.
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