Well, I’m going to look rather stupid. In my last post I went on about how I had learned to relax, to forgive myself for delays and lack of productivity, and how I didn’t care as much about getting work done since it’s my last semester and I have a good foundation to fall back on. All of that still applies, but as we come into finals week, I find myself grudgingly trying to get back into the grind. I say grudgingly because it really does feel involuntary, like a learned response from all the finals weeks I’ve pushed through. I know I don’t have to push hard. I know that I only need to nominally get things done and I’ll be perfectly fine. But old habits die hard.

Of course, this means that I’m having to up my game in terms of overcoming the obstacles to my productivity. When I could afford not to care, I didn’t have to do much to ensure that I got work done to a certain degree. I basically just had to sit down, put on a podcast for background noise, maybe start a pomodoro timer, and then do the work. It wasn’t a process I could effectively do everyday, which was fine when I didn’t have large scale end-of-semester projects to finish.

The first thing I’ve done to try and increase my productivity is change my environment. Normally, I would work at my desk in my bedroom. It’s good for those intense bursts of work when I need to lock myself away, but when my entire day is effectively being locked away, I go even more stir crazy trying to work in one small corner of my apartment. Instead, I’ve moved a lot of things into my living room. Since my roommate moved out, I don’t have to navigate around someone else needing the space, so I’ve been able to spread out a bit, not only for work but for more fun activities. I’ve hooked my Nintendo up to the bigger living room TV and just today brought my guitar amp and pedalboard out so that they aren’t crammed into the back corner of my bedroom. It’s been nice having more light during the day while working. It’s also had the side effect of making me sleep a little better, since my bedroom has effectively been reduced to that purpose alone and I can’t be overwhelmed by all my distractions being there when I go to bed.

Of course, this change in location has come with downsides. The wider space does offer more passive distractions. I’ll be working and look over into my kitchen, get hungry, and whip up a small meal, and before I know it, I’ve spent half an hour cooking and eating and my work flow has been entirely stopped. The light that comes in from the two bigger windows is nice, but it also means that I’m more inclined to get curious and peek out at what’s going on outside. Solve one problem, introduce another.

The biggest issue I’m facing is related to my lack of desire to get schoolwork done. In past semesters, I’ve at least had the drive to get the work done, if only to make it to the next break. My future and other passions have always been far off entities, things I could imagine but would not be able to reach or realize for a long while. Now, that is not the case. The future is in sight. It’s not only reachable, but increasingly imminent. The things I want to learn and accomplish are so close I can taste them, and I’m obsessing over the idea of finally being able to address them. School has always been in my way, but for the first time I can see a not-too-distant future where it isn’t in the way, and that makes every second I have to stick with schoolwork more unbearable. That in turn makes me fall a bit more behind each day, which makes me feel overwhelmed and want to work even less.

It’s kind of funny to be honest. I feel like I have this kind of issue every time I get to finals week. It rarely matters whether I am behind, but I always feel behind and I never know how I manage to get everything done. It’s like my brain goes into red alert and I descend into a trance of caffeine and anxiety until I find myself finished my work. I really want to avoid that this semester, because it’s honestly hell, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to. The fact of the matter is that whatever I normally do, however it normally works, it does work. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. Sometimes you have to hunker down and push through the things you have to do so that you can do the things you want to do. I know I can do it, if I can only sit down long enough.

It’s been a while since my last post. I could sit here and tell you about how busy I’ve been, how much stress I’ve been under with COVID-19 and the end of semester grind and worrying about moving back home. I wish I could tell you all of that, but the truth is, while all of that stuff has indeed been going on, I haven’t actually been all that busy. I haven’t been all that stressed. I’ve actually been feeling pretty great. Better than I’ve felt in actual years. In truth, the reason I haven’t been posting is because I’ve been putting more effort into self-care, and that I haven’t figured out how to balance it with schoolwork.

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about how I wasn’t great at self-care. I mentioned that I was trying to implement certain things like meditation and regular walks. I mentioned that I had several things that I wanted to do, wanted to implement, but didn’t know how. In the time since, I’ve figured out how. You just do it. The trick is that it might come at the cost of something else, and in my case it has been school and schoolwork.

Let me be clear. It’s not like I’m dropping school entirely. I’m here writing this for school. I still write my papers. But I’ve spent the majority of my life placing school as my top priority. Anything else I had came second, and everything else suffered as a result. I got results from that way of working. I don’t want to brag, but I’ve kept up a 4.0 GPA my entire time at Rowan University. I’ve been seriously dedicated to school, and I by no means want to drop it entirely. But as I said in my Self Care post, there are so many other things I want to do that I haven’t felt capable of doing because I only ever had one priority.

I refuse to sustain that. If I had to pick one thing that isolation has taught me, it is self-forgiveness. It’s an ability that I have almost completely lacked up to this point, despite friends and therapists and professors telling me that I should exercise it, that I deserved it. I never listened until now, until quarantine. Self-forgiveness, in my experience, functions the same way regular forgiveness does. When you mess up, you apologize to yourself, not just by regretting your shortcomings but by providing some way to make up for it. And then, you make it up to yourself and are forgiven.

I’ve had pretty severe issues maintaining motivation for schoolwork since quarantine started. It’s been a perfect storm of being stuck in a relaxed, non-professional environment, being isolated with no one around to truly hold me accountable, run-of-the-mill senioritis, and an overall dissatisfaction with the way I’ve been feeling mentally and where I am with my passions. It’s as though some switch has flipped in me, that I’ve reached some sort of breaking point. The fact of the matter is I’m tired of school. I’m tired of not doing the things that I want to do. And with “graduation” so close, all I can see is my coming freedom. I’m finally going to have time to do all the things I’ve wanted to do, that I’ve been neglecting.

Admittedly, this may not be the greatest tactic for succeeding in school. That’s where the self-forgiveness has come in. I have learned to trust myself. I’ve got a hell of a track record behind me, and even in times where I’m not motivated to get work done, where I procrastinate or struggle, I know that I not only come through it, but excel in doing so. Even with the chaos currently in my life, I have no reason to think that this will change. I trust that I will get done what I need to get done, and that even if I don’t do it to my absurd, perfectionist standards it will be good enough and won’t make too much of a dent in the progress I’ve previously made. I’ve never been a “C’s get degrees” kind of guy, but there comes a time where you have to put your foot down and say “I’m not going to torture myself”. I’m done torturing myself over grades that won’t matter to me ten years from now, especially when I know I can still do well enough to get by, if not better.

So I’ve found a new motivation. I’m forgiving myself, rebuilding my self-esteem, working to pursue my personal interests and hobbies, and looking forward to my future. I’m looking ahead. The future has always scared me, but I’ve been getting excited knowing that I will soon be able to work on my future without restriction. Hell, I’m already starting to. This new motivation might be exacerbating my issues with staying motivated for school, but I’ll be totally honest, I’m not sure how much I care. What’s one more obstacle? I know I can still get things done, and I trust that my work will ultimately be good enough. And if my energy is going to productive activities, to good things that will improve my life and mental health in the long run, then the hit to my school motivation is something I’m absolutely willing to forgive.