By Isaac Tay (25S06L)
This article didn’t go quite as planned.
It was supposed to be a feel-good, inspirational, motivational article about productivity hacks and routines I tried out during the June holidays.
For myself, this was going to be the push I needed to save my holiday from what it seemed destined to be. I’m talking about that kind of June holiday, where you’re feeling super pumped to grind your studies before the holiday starts, before three weeks go by and you realise nothing’s been done.
But this isn’t a story about productivity hacks, or routines.
This is a story about a boy who wanted to be a king.
The boy didn’t just want to be a king over some measly land, or province. Neither did the boy want to be king of a mighty country, or even the whole world. No, the boy wanted more.
The boy wanted to be the king of Time itself.
His friends told him that being king of Time could solve all your problems and worries. Knowledgeable, experienced noblemen preached about the wonders of Time. It was planted in the boy’s heart that having control over Time gave you true satisfaction in life, and even gave you keys to treasures called Success.
Hence, the boy embarked on a mission. To conquer Time.
The Plan
So, I told myself that this June holiday would be different. No more messing around this time.
This time, we lock in. This time, we will be productive. This time, we will get everything done.
Sound familiar?
I found a couple of productive lifestyle videos on Youtube and one seemed especially appealing: the One Month Day.
This lifestyle promised that you would be able to complete a whole month’s worth of work in just a single day.
“Well, that sure sounds good,” I told myself. Finally, something that I could use to give myself the productivity boost I needed during the holidays!
As an added incentive, I tasked myself with the writing of this very article. Not only was I able to become efficient during the holidays, I could also use this opportunity to log my experiences and share them in an article! Two birds with one stone!
What could possibly go wrong!
The Bad Execution
Here’s where it all went wrong. Let’s take a deep dive together to explore how all my planning went down the drain.
Lesson #1: Don’t sleep at 2am the night before your productive day.
I remember following along the steps in the video: setting aside one day as the ‘lock-in day’, planning the day’s events on my calendar, etc etc. Yet there was something mentioned in the video I neglected: sleeping early the night before.
Hindsight is 20/20, and it is true when they say that a productive day starts the day before. Making sure you have a good rest the night before is very important, and this was something I left out that cost me my first attempt at this challenge.
On the original date I was supposed to try this, I ended up sleeping at 2am the night before because doom scrolling is such a real thing. I had set my alarm for 6am, but when I woke up, I was not feeling it at all. So, I ended up turning off the alarm at 6 and proceeded to sleep until 10 that day. And once I had a rough start of the day, the rest of the day followed suit.
By the end of my first attempt, nothing had been done at all.
Lesson #2: Don’t find excuses not to do your work.
After the initial failure to make a super productive day, I shrugged it off, and said “Nevermind, I’ll just pick another day to do this thing.” I ended up choosing a weekend 5 days from the original attempt as the next ‘lock-in day’. What this meant, however, was that in the lead-up to that day, I ended up not doing any work at all for the rest of the 4 days. After all, how would you convince yourself to do some work when you can just leave it all to the ‘lock-in day’ to get it done?
Funny thing was, on the ‘lock-in day’ I found another excuse not to get stuff done: it was a public holiday, and the library was closed. This time, I studied only for a couple of hours at the nearby coffee shop, before doing nothing else the rest of the day. At least I had a few hours in, but it was nowhere close to the 11 hours I had envisioned myself to study for.
Lesson #3: Don’t beat yourself up when plans go south.
The third lesson nicely ties into the next section of this article, as well as the next phase of my June holidays:
The Slump
By the third week of June, I was already feeling downcast about not being the productive self I had hoped to be. But this only aggravated things, because now I had even less motivation to start working.
Maybe it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe it’s true that productivity is only for those who have their lives together, and that once you’re a slacker, you’re always a slacker.
And thus, began my slump during which I did nothing at all. On the bright side, however, I did have a family trip, as well as a youth camp, during this period so it did help put my mind off the matter.
Overseas trips and youth camps can only last for so long, however, and once those were over, reality set in: I had done almost absolutely nothing during the holidays.
Defeat was easily settling in. I had no more inclination to study for the upcoming Timed Practices. I might as well give up and relax for the rest of the holidays.
The Fifth Stage of Grief
At this time of writing, it is the final week of the holidays. Looking back, I definitely was nowhere close to being the locked-in, productive, hardworking guy I had set myself out to be for June.
But maybe that’s alright.
Maybe it’s okay that, although I didn’t have the ‘lock-in day’ experience I wanted, I still spent some time here and there to catch up on my studies. Maybe those couple of hours are still better than nothing at all.
Maybe it’s fine to let yourself loose sometimes. It’s the holidays after all.
Maybe instead of locking yourself in your room trying to get studies done, you used the holidays to spend time with your precious friends and family instead. Maybe you created some good memories you’ll keep for years to come.
This was a story about a boy who wanted to be a king. The king of Time.
But boys can only dream for so long. And that’s okay. You see, the boy tried to chase this dream of his, but he realised that he was only human after all.
Although the boy did not make it to the end of his journey, unlike most tales and legends, the boy did enjoy the process. He made new friends, cherished his family, and learned a thing or two.
This boy might not be so well-equipped to face the dragon ahead of him, bearing the fearsome name ‘Timed Practice’, but at least the boy’s happy with life and ready for the ride.
The author would like to acknowledge the irony that this article was delayed a number of times due to procrastination. He sincerely apologises to all parties affected.
Credits:
https://unsplash.com/photos/cup-of-coffee-near-macbook-pro-DJ7bWa-Gwks
https://unsplash.com/photos/man-running-near-sea-during-daytime-AtfA8NDgpKA