The habit that I wanted to improve on was to incorporate doing work into more parts of my day. My goal was to chip away at work during my pastime rather than working on it when I felt like I absolutely had to, which has been something I’ve struggled with a lot in my last four years here. I also wanted to be reasonable and do so in a way that didn’t feel overexerting. If I incorporated work into two unique periods of the day, that was already a big improvement for me!
Here was my schedule this past holiday weekend:
Jan. 14th
- 12 pm: wake up
- 1 pm: ordering dessert at somi somi
- 2 pm: just got home, handling event logistics
- 3 pm: video games
- 4 pm: prepare for house meeting (dorm)
- 5 pm: give house meeting presentation
- 6 pm: start pset (setup)
- 7 pm: gaming
- 8 pm: gaming
- 9 pm: commuting to ceramics studio (planning to do work there)
- 10 pm: doing work
- 11 pm: just got to friend’s apartment
- 12 am: chatting with friends
- 1 am: chatting with friends
- 2 am: cleaning up dorm from earlier event
- 3 am: scrolling
- 4 am: in bed
Jan. 15th
- 12 pm: wake up
- 1 pm: still in bed, watching youtube
- 2 pm: eating lunch
- 3 pm: facetime
- 4 pm: gaming
- 5 pm: driving to mall
- 6 pm: shopping
- 7 pm: shopping
- 8 pm: dinner
- 9 pm: just got home! decompressing on phone
- 10 pm: gaming + youtube
- 11 pm: pset
- 12 am: pset + youtube
- 1 am: gaming
- 2 am: gaming
- 3 am: event planning for job
- 4 am: in bed
Diagram 1:
Reflection:
When I had the mindset of being productive, I felt that a lot of times I would convert a destressing habit into a productive one much more quickly than usual. I found that if I felt distracted or stressed, I would either resort to gaming or doing work (which is a big improvement, as I usually would just game by default). Even when I resorted to gaming, I feel like my motivation to convert the mental clarity I get from destressing into being productive was much higher than usual. There were still many times where I would start doing a destressing activity and continue doing so until my next commitment, but given that I was able to incorporate productivity into multiple aspects of my day, I think it was a big improvement!
Diagram 2:
Reflection:
I think my desire for freedom and having a more stress-free lifestyle allowed me to convert an unhealthy habit to become a destressing habit. I think a lot of times bursts of doing something I enjoy (for ideally < 1 hour, but at most 2) gives me the energy and mental clarity to be able to pursue something that I need to be productive.
Overall Learning:
Maybe my results are just confirmation bias and I want to convince myself that my unhealthy habits are just destressors, but overall I’m pretty happy with how both of my days that I recorded went. I do think that in the future, I will probably want to transition into healthier destressing habits, but for now it’s nice to do things in moderation and convert the mental clarity I get into being productive.
