How To Stay Productive During Quarantine

Photo by Elise Madden | The Harbinger Online

With the statewide stay-at-home order and subsequent move to online schooling, mental health can finally be a student’s main priority. But being locked in the house makes it dangerously easy to stay tucked under your bed covers and procrastinate your online courses.

To prevent myself from falling into that destructive routine, implementing a structured and self-tailored schedule has helped keep me productive.

When the statewide quarantine was introduced, the first positive thing that popped in my head was that I could make my own schedule and find time for things I couldn’t do during the school year, such as focusing on my music interests, learning new recipes and setting aside more time to be outdoors. Sticking to a schedule that works for you is important because you can effectively plan your life around different activities to accomplish — you can even use my routine as inspiration to make your own.

The gift of time already bodes for a more productive lifestyle — I can read the books that have been sitting unread on my bookshelf and master the guitar that’s been sitting in the corner of my room, as well as clean up my diet and go on more runs. 

But committing to a productive, goal-driven lifestyle isn’t a one step process. It must be practiced and repeated to get long-term results. 

To get my morning to a productive start, I make sure to down a bottle of water, regardless of my initial caffeine cravings. 

After my morning hydration, I ignore my heavy eyelids urging me to crawl back under my covers and I get some fresh air, making myself run a mile minimum. Exercise is good for my mental health, considering my limited outside-world exposure. Running and the endorphins it brings also helps to relieve worry generated by the world’s current stress-filled situation. But if running around the block makes you want to cry, maybe try out some yoga or indoor pilates.

It’s also important to have a broad selection of activities to do during the day so every day isn’t repeated exactly from the one before. A designated morning and night routine is ideal, but during the day it’s important to switch up your activities so there’s some variation and distinction between your days. 

Each day, I make it a necessity to either learn a new song on my guitar, bake a new recipe with my sister or skateboard down my block — if I keep myself busy with as many different activities as possible, my life still feels productive even on days I partake in less vigorous activities, like watching movies instead of skateboarding.

To keep track of the new online school process and my change in lifestyle, I’ve made a checklist for my routine and started journaling daily, writing the goals I want to accomplish for the day. 

The goals are seemingly mundane, such as making my bed, walking my dog or finishing a chapter of my current read — Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” but checking off that list every day provides a sense of order and sanity. It’s all incredibly calming and personally necessary throughout this lockdown. As corny as it sounds, journaling and writing out a plan helps set a healthy rhythm for the new normal.

COVID-19 is a serious pandemic that must be treated with immense respect and care, and this quarantine isn’t just free fun time. But it has encouraged me to look on the upside instead of focusing on the darkness that I could easily get wrapped up in by giving into the mass hysteria or conspiracies about the end of the world. Writing down things in your life that you can control helps in moments when times feel out of control.

While juggling sports and school work during the academic year, I never truly found time for the things that inspired me like the brushing up on my French and even writing my own songs on the piano — and it’s these passions in life that make it so easy to stay indoors and stay safe. 

With these new activities, it’s still important to acknowledge the academic presence that will be reaching students through Zoom and WebEx.

Although new protocol has called for no mandatory attendance and no possibility for grades to go down, not participating in school for five months isn’t doing you any favors and school work should be kept up with if possible to prepare for the upcoming school year. It’s also important to stay on top of things in your AP classes to prepare for AP testing in May. You can keep track of your assignments and schedule by making writing in a journal or planner a daily occurrence.

So even if it’s not a lot, write down your weekly goals and things to accomplish, work on your pre-calc packet and English paper, while also balancing and exploring your other interests in arts and literature — in the safety of your home.