Honestly, I saw quarantine as an excuse to be lazy, it was like God's little break for me, so it was okay for me to do close to nothing, but I have an issue now. It isn't really quarantine anymore, it's the summer break before I start my freshman year of college, which mean I really have a lot of things to do and figure out, and I'm not gonna do that by laying in my bed with the lights turned off watching Netflix all day. I had to come up with a few ways to keep myself motivated and productive, and I thought I'd share a few of those ideas with you.
Make Lists
Making lists is one of my favorite things to do, I don't know why, but they always make me feel so organized and productive. That's probably why this was one of my first solutions to my lazy spell I've been going through. I've made daily lists of things I need to complete that day, things I need to do to get ready for school, articles to write, etc. The best part about the lists is that once you get part of it done, you can mark it off, and that is a big motivator for me to actually do the things on the list.
Use A Planner
This is another big one for me because not knowing what day it is really just gives me that much more reason to do nothing. It feels like the last time I looked at my planner I was four months away from going to college. Well, I looked at it the other day and I'm six weeks away from my move in day, SIX WEEKS. I wasted way too much time. So, the moral of the story is, if you actually know what day it is, maybe you'll realize that you need to get some things done because you're quickly running out of time.
Eat Healthy(ish)
It's just common knowledge that what you put into your body has a large effect on your productivity. For example, if you eat a bowl of watermelon in the morning, you're probably going to feel better than if you had eaten a donut. It makes your body feel better, so you have more energy to get things done. But.. still treat yourself.
Get Enough Sleep and Wake Up Early
This is a basic. If you don't get enough sleep it's hard to function the next day. I've found that if I go to bed a little earlier and wake up a little earlier, it's much easier to be productive that day. It's pointless, at least for me, to go to sleep at two a.m. and wake up at eleven. Even though I got a good amount of sleep, I'll still get absolutely nothing done and I'll probably feel horrible the rest of the day, because I woke up so late. It also helps me to actually get ready when I wake up, because being in my pajamas all day gives me the mind set of being a lazy bum.
Move Around
For me, it doesn't matter how productive I am if I've spent my whole day sitting around. I could get a million things done on my computer, but it isn't going to feel like a productive day if I haven't moved around. For example, I've sat and wrote this article for a good hour, so I'm gonna have to get up and do some things that allow me to move around after this. I've got to find a balance between desk work and things that I can do moving around to really feel productive. Plus, if I feel productive today, it'll help my motivation tomorrow, because that productive feeling makes me feel good.
I hope this article could help everyone out a little bit. There are just a few of the techniques that I've been using to boost my motivation because they work for me. I hope they work for you too.
