You talked about this with an anon a few days ago I believe and I have to say I'm indeed impressed of how you've grown as a person those last years. I'm also impressed of how many things you do in your life and how many things you are interested in. How do you even do it ? Everytime I want to do something, I end up just spending my time on my computer doing nothing all day, and that goes for my homeworks, internship research and mémoire too. You have any advice ?
Hi my dove!
I have to admit that I do spend a lot of time staring at my computer screen and at my phone’s screen. These last couple of months have been quite intense for me, since I started my internship, because I’ve had my internship, my one class a week, my student job and my volunteer job, all of which kind of merges together when I try to write fic (NaNoWriMo), do edits, work on cosplay and what else have yous...
To be quite honest, I don’t have any usable advice, other than telling you what I do in order to try and get through all the tasks I need to get through in the day - and perhaps, telling you that maybe having 60+ hour weeks for more than four months in a row is a bit much.
I always write down a list of things I’ve done in the day when I am having dinner and/or am about to head to bed. It can be ‘done laundry, folded clothes, showered, put cutlery and plates in dishwasher, read one text, saw a movie and went to the grocery store’ because all of those things in themselves aren’t, well, “proper things” but they are when you put them together.
After I’d done this a while, I realized that I had a list inside my brain all the time, and if I could just tick off 4 things in a day, I’d be satisfied - it could be to wash my clothes, shave my legs (which also meant showering), prepare a text for Uni, and walk home from my internship.
It’s also a lot of self-control - when I’m at my internship, that’s all I do. I don’t sit around on Facebook, staring at my phone, because I know they’re expecting me to do my job and to do it well - I may be overperforming at 120% of what is expected of me, because I am hoping to impress them enough to be offered a position there when I have finished my thesis, but that’s basically it.
When I’m working on Uni things, I also don’t look at my phone. It helps that I have it on completely silent 24/7 - it’s never on vibrate or on sound. So, I don’t know if someone is calling me unless I a) have my phone in my hand when the call goes through or b) I see they’ve tried to call and left (or not) a message. You’d be surprised at how few calls I’ve missed because of that specific thing.
It stems from the fact that having my phone vibrate for every single notification all the time gave me a whole lot of anxiety a couple of years ago - WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, Tumblr, e-mail, text, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Tumblr, Messenger, e-mail, e-mail, text from the store, e-mail, e-mail,... It was just non stop, so I turned it off. I still check my phone once every three minutes, but if it’s a notification I can ignore for now (someone on Whatsapp asking me how my day is, for example), I wait until lunch or until I have a bathroom break to reply to it.
It’s also how I did it with NaNo - do word sprints. Except here, it’s more like concentration sprints. Write your article, then spend five minutes goofing around on tumblr.
In the morning, too, I’ve made it a habit to unlock my phone when I go to the bathroom to pee, first thing in the morning, and instead of spending 15 minutes in bed checking my calendar/mail/instagram/whatnot, I spend maybe 5 minutes going through it while I do my thing, and then I get on with my day. I also optimize phone usage while I’m on public transport - scroll away while you’re in the bus, but stop scrolling when you’re at work / in class.
My student job is being behind a counter in a busy shop, so I don’t have time at all to goof around on my phone, which means I get shit done there too, but it’s retail, so you reach a point where there’s nothing left for you to learn, so you just go on auto-mode.
I’m juggling a lot of things at once right now - I’m supposed to start writing on my thesis, but I still haven’t finished my internship and my one class yet (lol, don’t ask), so I’m optimizing all of my time so I can get at least 7 hours of sleep per night, and get enough tasks done in a day to keep me afloat - and, when I can, I sit on the couch, connect my phone to the ChromeCast and watch a bunch of silly Vine compilations or other equally silly videos for half an hour, and then I go to bed.
My only, like, real life advice I can ever give you is: don’t ever think that you’re doing yourself a favor by staying up until 5 am, UNLESS YOUR BODY (AND PSYCHE) CAN HANDLE IT. I know my brain can’t, so I’d rather go to bed at 9 pm, and get up at 5 am to finish something, instead of doing it the other way around.
Make sure you get enough sleep when you can. Socialize when you can - don’t lock yourself away from others because you’re busy. You’re not too busy to grab a cup of coffee or meet up with someone at Uni after class.
Eat. Like, for real. Even if it’s muesli with milk and a banana for dinner, it’s fuel for your body. You only had garlic bread in the freezer and you were too tired/busy to make proper food? Eat those garlic bread. Or cheetos. Or donuts. Or salad. Or- you get the point. Just get SOMETHING into your body. You can always go to the gym or walk it off when you’re not stressed anymore.
Drink - if you haven’t filled your water bottle three times in a day, you haven’t had enough water today. (Assuming you have a 0,5 l bottle, like me). If you think filling it twice is enough, you’re wrong. If you’ve only had soda during the day, you need to drink at least one large glass of water - trust me.
Remember that it’s okay to cry because you’re stressed - it took me a while to remember this, but your body and mind have limits. Even if you do 60+ hours, remember that it’s okay to break down at one point and be like ‘fuck this’. If you have to skip reading some texts for Uni, then just read the conclusion of the text instead. If you have something to hand in at work, either ask for an extension, or hand in something that’s finished but not perfect instead - sometimes they’ll have other things to correct (commas, spellings, etc.) and when you get to do the second draft, you’ll get to edit some of those other things you didn’t get the time to do first time around.
And last: never, ever, ever, blame yourself for not managing to do as much with your 24 hours as others. Some only need 3 hours of sleep to function, others need 9. Some manage to get up at fuck’o’clock in the morning to go to the gym, workout, go to work, go to some extra-curricular activity, make homegrown chicken pasta noodle salads with their homebaked bread, and then watch a documentary about how clever they are, all in one single day. Others will sit all day on the couch and watch a documentary on Netflix about polar bears while eating cheetos, maybe also procrastinating and making mentals notes about that paper that’s due in a week.
All are valid.
You can make it count. All that matters is that you don’t give up.
Also: my background on my phone is this picture:
And I suggest all of these ones to keep you motivated:
(All these pictures are from a photopost that crossed my dash months ago on tumblr, if you know the owner/artist, PLEASE let me know so I can credit them!)
I hope this all helped, my little darling <3
