Studying & Tech

Studying about language learning and teaching for my UX class. Gonna use what I learn for an app I'm designing!

It's a story as old as time. You enrol in a program that's in a different city, country or even continent.

Sometimes this means having to adapt to a new culture, new language and new way of life. For many, this is the first time they've been completely on their own - paying their own bills, taking care of their living space and meeting new people.

Being in a new environment means having to adapt. It's challenging because it often forces you to get out of your comfort zone and be the one that drives things forward. While setting up events and asking people out comes naturally to some, most people struggle with anxiety, fear of rejection and other obstacles.

All these troubles are doubled or tripled when you're completely new to a location, without any network to work off of. Studying or working abroad can feel extremely isolating, but it doesn't have to be.

Here's how you can leverage technology to make friends as an adult studying or living in a new city, country or continent:

1. Join Meetup groups and events

Meetup is an extremely useful app/website. You can search up events and groups in your neighbourhood or city. You can sign up to individual events, or become a group member so that you're notified whenever your group organizes an event.

Most events and groups are completely free, so you won't have to worry about any unnecessary fees.

What's more, you don't even have to be physically present to attend. If "real life" friends aren't your thing, there are also plethora of online events you can attend. This option is also great if there aren't any local groups or events that interest you.

This has been one of the main ways I've made a bunch of friends while working and studying abroad.

2. Look into your university's student organizations on Reddit or Facebook

If you're currently studying at a university, you're basically a proverbial fisherman living on a beach.

If you're studying abroad, there are bound to be at least a few dozen, if not hundreds or thousands, of international students in your city who are just like you. They're probably also homesick and trying to fit in. They don't know anyone here either. They want to meet people like them, and make memories that will last them a lifetime, just like you.

Even if the student body of your university doesn't have that many international students, you can still find many people who share your interests and values. You can bond around things you have in common.

The easiest way to start making friends with likeminded people from your university is to look into student organizations. Most universities have at least a few. Some are sports-related, some are focused around a hobby, some are mission-driven, and others organize fun events like parties. Find one dedicated to a topic or activity that interests you, join it, and become an active member.

Try to attend as many events as you can, participate in online discourse, join the group chats and talk to people. It sounds scarier than it actually is. Remember that people who run and attend these events do it because they're passionate and want to meet other passionate people. You share the same goal. Don't be afraid to meet them and show them who you are.

How do you find out if your university has student organizations? You can search them up on Reddit or Facebook. Type something along the lines of:

{Your university} groups

{Your city} groups

{Your university} organizations

{Your university} student organizations

You can also try to find subreddits or Facebook groups for your general student body. Most universities have some social media ran by students to promote their events. Try to find them! I guarantee you that they're going to be thrilled by you wanting to join them.

3. Find websites or apps with your city's events

Most cities with medium to large populations have apps and websites dedicated to listing out events of varying sizes. These can range from bigger events like concerts and stand-up comedy nights with famous comedians to smaller events like reading clubs and canvas painting sessions over a glass of wine. These are public events, and many tend to be completely free.

You can find them fairly easily by searching up Events in {your city}. These sites tend to be pretty popular so they should be somewhere at the top of your search results page.

Even if you think your city is too small for that, or that your country isn't too techy, I highly suggest trying to find them nonetheless. You might be pleasantly surprised!

4. Join Discord groups centered around your interests

If you're a fellow Discord enjoyer, you might be a member of a few Discord servers pertaining to your hobbies, especially gaming. But you might not be very active in most. Well, now I'm going to ask you to actually talk in those groups. Become more active, talk in voice chats, join movie nights, start new events, join and play in the Minecraft server with others. I know, I know, it's not easy. But that's why you should choose one or two servers you care about the most, and really try to get to know the people there. Just make sure everyone you're talking to is comfortable (and of-age)!

If you've never used Discord before, that's okay! If none of the tips above worked for you, try creating a Discord account and joining a few servers centered around a topic or hobby you like. Discord servers are basically like a giant WhatsApp group, but a bit more organized. Most people are really nice, and you can just leave if you don't feel comfortable around some people or in particular servers.

There are two main types of Discord servers: public and private.

Public Discord servers tend to be very large and can be overwhelming sometimes, because there are loads of things happening at any given moment. But they're also much easier to find and they tend to be more active due to the large member pool. Public servers also tend to be more moderated and have a clear hierarchy of admin, moderators and other staff.

Private Discord servers are created by individuals for their friend groups. You won't find these servers online, because they're mostly based on a member inviting you. These groups tend to be smaller and have more freedom. It's easier to integrate into a smaller group like this, because everyone already knows they can trust the other members.

There are many ways to find and join Discord servers. Here's a few ideas that I've used in the past:

Browse through public servers listed on DiscordServers.com.

Go to subreddits dedicated to particular topics, and then look for Discord groups that people list. Sometimes the subreddit has an official Discord server, and sometimes you have to find them up through the search bar. Just type in "Discord" to find them.

Most YouTubers and celebrities have official and unofficial Discord servers, so look in YouTube video descriptions or online for any mention of that.

If you use Twitter, chances are that many of your mutuals are in some Discord servers already. Keep an eye on that and ask to join if they mention it.

5. Use Google Maps to find cool places

No, I'm not setting you up to get murdered haha.

Open your Google or Apple maps app and browse around your town. We usually use these apps when we know the location we want to go to already, but how about using it to find places that look interesting?

These apps have come a long way since their inception, and they're basically full-fledged search browsers now. Type in "cafe", "gaming", "coworking space", "library", "gallery", or similar places you'd like to go to but you don't know if they exist. You might be surprised.

3.12.2022.

I was feeling very sick this past week, and I didn't have much energy to do anything, let alone go outside. Plus, lots of things happened in my personal life that got me extremely stressed out, and even depressed at times.

So, I've decided to take it slow today, and to go outside for a coffee. Little did I know that the whole city decided to go out too, since every cafe I usually go to was completely packed! Luckily, 5th time is the charm, and I found a new French coffee shop with chill vibes.

I decided to bring my iPad and a keyboard I recently got for it, in case I feel creative. Since Apple doesn't make first party keyboards for iPad Mini 6, I bought this small ultra-thin one of my own! It's thinner than my iPad, which is totally bonkers! And it's a full keyboard with all the function buttons and such. I'm really happy with it.

9/100 | 15.11.2022.

Monday morning = start of the work week. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination so I really appreciate being able to work 100% remotely on the days I don't feel like getting out of my warm, comfortable, soft bed.

This is my work setup, nothing too fancy, but it works. I really enjoy keeping work stuff separate from my personal computer, which is why I only use my company-administered laptop for work. It helps me mentally separate my life - once I close the laptop, workday ends. I stop thinking about work. It's great!

Today's gonna be busy with meetings and some follow-up tasks I've got lined up.

4/100 | 9.11.2022.

Today I worked, got dressed up and attended a dance performance centered around accessibility, and more specifically, accessibility to people with visual and hearing impairments.

It was quite an eye-opening experience, the performance was crafted and narrated to tell a short story that felt very deep. The panel held after the dance also discussed the goals and specific decisions that were made to make sure to communicate the story using as many media as possible - movement, music, visuals, narration, translation and sign language.

~~ 8/11/2022 ~~

Warning: Long post ahead; TLDR is that you should settle on a single system that doesn't take too much time or effort to keep up, and then just stick with it even if it's not perfect. The goal is to do quality work, not optimize an arbitrary system.

~~

What I'm going to talk about in this blog might seem obvious to some of you, but I've personally struggled with it as someone who grew up with technology and generally has a huge love and appreciation for it. This is for my fellow tech nerds that have found themselves struggling with productivity and procrastination in the search for "the perfect productivity system".

First, a little bit of context: I've always considered myself a nerd, I love reading and learning new things like most people here. I also always loved notetaking and studying, which led me to the "study tips" circles of YouTube years ago. As I grew up and my responsibilities expanded beyond what was required of me in school and university, I naturally wandered into the "productivity gurus" sphere thanks to the all-mighty power of the YouTube recommendations algorithm. I fell down the rabbit-hole of trying to find the perfect productivity tool to manage all my tasks. I've tried so many apps and software - Asana, Trello, Figma, Todoist, TickTick, TeuxDeux, Google Keep and Calendar, and so much more. I've done time-blocking, pomodoro and bullet journaling. I went through so many daily, weekly, monthly and yearly calendars. I've done both digital and analog calendars and planners. I've done it all. Nothing worked, and nothing stuck for more than a week. Ultimately, nothing changed, except I wasted a whole load of time.

Now, that isn't to say that you might not be successful in your search, and I don't want to discourage you from trying to improve your productivity system. BUT, I want to remind you that you should be realistic in your search, and to keep your end goal in mind - doing great work. It took me many years and a lot of wasted time to learn this lesson, because it's way too tempting to assume that you're only one tip away from completely transforming your productivity. It's not my fault, and neither is it yours if you feel this way - it's the fault of advertisers and savvy marketers whose goal is to make their latest and shiniest new productivity app popular.

So, remember: no tool or system is going to transform your productivity. That part is on you. What will produce results is setting up a system that isn't in your way. What does that mean?

It means you should craft a system that won't take too much brainpower or input to work. To achieve this, the system needs to be based on your average day. It naturally follows that you shouldn't blindly copy what others are doing (although getting ideas is fun and can be helpful), because they've optimized for their own specific needs.

I'll give you a few examples from my personal journey of uncovering the system that worked for me:

Project management apps like Asana weren't a good fit for me because they required way too much thinking and planning on my end. I'd also always need to stop what I'm doing to look up what I'm working on and what still needs to be done

To-Do apps like Todoist encouraged me to write down tasks after completing them just to get the dopamine hit of checking things off a list

I struggled with focusing with most digital tools because of the distractions and the inherent restrictions (either too many or too little functionality)

Preparing a bullet journal took too much of my time and just didn't feel right for me

As you can see, I was being very picky. I eventually got lost in trying to find the "perfect" system. I'd get bothered by any little inconvenience and I'd figure that I should continue my search. Meanwhile, my assignments kept piling up.

How did I fix it?

I'm a big fan of Cal Newport's books, and I was listening to his podcast one day. He was answering a viewer's question on productivity and why he doesn't use a To-Do app to manage his tasks, because writing things down in a paper planner takes longer. He responded with "I'm not in the business of saving those extra few seconds. I want to do quality work over a long period of time." I'm paraphrasing here (wish I remembered which podcast episode it was so I could link it), but those words finally made something click in my mind.

I went to my local book store and immediately bought a weekly paper calendar. I decided there and then that that, along with a blue and black pen, would be my productivity system from now on. Blue is for writing work tasks, black is for personal tasks. Here's how it looks:

Not exactly what I'd call the "cutting edge of technology" haha. P.S. I can't show the filled-in pages because they're full of work stuff that's under an NDA, sorry!

This purchase was made on July 17th, 2022. Today is November 8th, 2022. This has been the most consistent productivity system I've ever had. I kept wondering why it worked so well, and here's what I think:

It's simple. It doesn't get any simpler than a pen and paper. No learning curve. Just write words and cross them out.

It's not a distraction. Planning with iPads is so fun. So, so fun. It's pleasant and it makes you feel important. But it's so easy to get distracted doing it because you're always one swipe away from the good stuff of your device. Separate paper planner does one thing. You're not going to be browsing through your old to-do lists and work tasks for fun (take a walk if you're that desperate!!!). It's boring and that's what makes it awesome.

It's flexible. I bought an A5 size planner because I found that to be the perfect size for me. I have enough space to write out a couple of tasks per day without it feeling overwhelming. Plus, paper planners are great because you can scribble, add, stick, snap, rip etc. etc. If there's something I need to jot down quickly, I'll grab a sticky note and pop it onto the current day/week page. You can't do that with an iPad (imagine sticking a physical sticky note on your iPad and walking around with it haha). There are digital sticky notes within planning apps but they always take way too much time to set up, which defeats the whole purpose of quick-access sticky notes.

It's reliable. When I was buying the planner, I immediately envisioned that it'd be placed in the top-right corner of my desk, open and always ready for notes. I don't have to run around the house trying to find it. It's always there.

It feels good. Nothing beats grabbing a real pen and watching the shiny ink dry under the desk light. Crossing tasks off my physical list feels like I earned it. There's something special and satisfying about how every cross-off/tick is unique: sometimes the line gets a little wavy, sometimes you're in a hurry, and sometimes it's absolutely perfect. You can't replicate that personality in a digital app that does the same animation every time you complete a task.

It's good enough. It's reliable and lets me remember what I need to do. I don't need all the bells and whistles. It works for >80% of my requirements, and makes me complete tasks. What else do I really need?

All in all, I love this planner with a passion. It's great, and it's amazingness partially comes from the fact that I'm not taking it too seriously. If I mess something up, I won't freak out. My OCD is being kept in check. I'm chilling.

I used this calendar for months, until one day I decided to start going out more. I started looking up local events on a bunch of websites, and I started signing up for them. I realized that my little paper planner would not be the ideal choice for signing up and keeping track of events that I've signed up for digitally. So, I decided to hit up my old buddy Structured (www.structured.app, not affiliated, just love the product).

I bought it a year ago or so for a flat fee of 5 euros, and I loved it because it offered something I'd always looked for in a planning app - to do lists incorporated into a calendar, but structured like a time-blocking system (quite a demand, I know). Plus, I'd already bought it, so why not use it? Here is how a day schedule looks in the app:

I synced it with my iOS calendar and iCloud so that I can also see the schedule on my iPad. It's a simple app that just works. I either just add a new event manually in a few clicks or it syncs automatically via my iCal.

I value work-life balance a lot, so I've decided to create a boundary between my day-job task planning and my personal life planning. That way, when I close my physical planner, I know work is done. I don't look at my Structured app during work, it's just set as a huge block of time called "Work" and I don't plan for anything else during that. Once the workday ends, I close the planner and start looking at my Structured app to see what's happening and I what I want to do for the rest of the day.

This is a system that works for me, and I hope it inspires you to think about your values, your life circumstances, and what feels the best for you. Sometimes introducing a new tool works. Sometimes it doesn't. The key is to choose something that does the job (helping you plan and complete high quality work), and stick with it. Don't actively try to find faults in the system.

2/100 - 7/11/2022

Today has been excellent!

Mondays are always busy for me, but here is a little summary of my day:

I was very productive at work - managed to do all tasks efficiently and troubleshoot problems

Ordered a tasty veggie pizza for lunch and read a little bit

Had a 1h Yoga session (we do a lot of meditation during it - it does wonders for my mental health, especially since I go on Mondays)

Followed up the Yoga with a 2h gym session which consisted of cardio and weight training

Got home, showered, feeling great

I am going to grab a snack and spend the rest of my evening writing that report from yesterday.

So far so good!!

We are not robots. We are human, with human biology. Human bodies were not designed to sit at a desk for hours on end, staring at a screen. Nevertheless, we've been conditioned into judging our "worth" based on how much "output" we can churn out. I'm here to remind you that there's a way to approach productivity in a more balanced manner.

Your productivity is mostly based on the way you’re taking care of yourself. You can’t be the best version of yourself if you’re running on motivation or determination only. You need reliable self-care systems.

This goes double for my neurodivergent friends. We can’t rely on ourselves, we need external, hard rules, and most importantly, we need to set these systems up so that our mind aligns with what our body is feeling.

To be productive, you need to:

Sleep enough (7-9h per night. It’s hard sometimes especially if you get woken up by anxiety or other problems, but it’s a good goal to try to stick to)

Eat well (nutritious food AND enough calories to keep you energetic. Blueberries and bananas are my favorite evening snacks!!)

Drink enough water (coffee and tea are tasty but they’re not enough! Keep a water bottle at your side AT ALL TIMES. It’s life-changing honestly, you begin to realize how dehydrated you’ve always been)

Exercise (work within your limits, and start small, but don’t skip this one. This has been the biggest contributor to my mental and physical well-being by far. It’s contributing to your health, it’s a great way to de-stress, it boosts energy, your body releases happiness hormones, you feel accomplished, you sleep better, you become more confident... It’s literally win after win after win)

Take care of your mental health (whatever that means to you, for me it means writing things that bug me, trying not to get too emotional over things I can’t control, positive affirmations, listening to music, drawing, etc.)

Meet new people (I know it’s scary, I’m an introvert. BUT, meeting new people lets you learn from them, broaden your perspective on life, get inspired, and make friends! Search up local events on meetup.com, there are plenty of different ones for all kinds of people, both outgoing and not-so-outgoing)

This list is quite long but it’s necessary to do all of those things (in a balanced way that feels right for you) in order to become a well-rounded person.

Once you’ve made changes on different “fronts“, the positive effect compounds: your nutrition affects your energy level which boosts your ability to exercise which then impacts how well you sleep, and round and round we go.

Once you’ve created a healthy system to fall back on, productivity at work or in school only becomes one part of a larger image. Doing one thing in excess is not healthy or sustainable.