DUB Speak

The (Un) Productive Cycle

Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

 

Being productive is too much work and we, as students, are too much lazy. Read further to relieve yourself of this pressure of working too hard.

On the morning of National Productivity Day, I overslept and missed my first lecture. I reached the next lecture 20 minutes late and instead of writing my article, I went to Taco Bell with my friends. I also had the first day of my internship where I spent about 2 hours doing pretty much nothing. I finally came home, watched To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before part two and cringed over it for an hour. I ate dinner, finally decided to write my article the next day and swiped left on Tinder for another half hour. Welcome to a day into the unproductive life of a college student.

As students, we can spend days, weeks, months or even years doing absolutely nothing and yet feel immensely tired and exhausted all. the. time. I personally like to think of it as some kind of a talent we all possess. T’is ain’t an easy life, my friends. However, what bothers me is this intuitive need one has to be productive. An unproductive day is considered a lazy day. But again, is there something really wrong with it?

We’re all too hard on ourselves. We push our own limits, setting goals far beyond our standards. The inability to meet these unrealistic expectations brings down our morale, further degrading our work quality and eventually placing us in the inevitable, vicious cycle of unproductivity. Seriously, chill out, these unnecessary pressures, the romanticisation of being exhausted or busy, the capitalistic notions of achievements need to be challenged. Pushing yourself is great, but being cruel to yourself is not the best way to achieve your goals. 

In this ends versus means debate, choose the right path for yourself. Take a day off and sleep for 16 hours. Watch the worst guilty pleasures on Netflix. Make plans and cancel them all. You deserve a break from stressing out about being productive by being absolutely unproductive. You can also be kind to yourself and be a part of the ‘race’, or maybe even sit out of the race. 

I would ask you to chill this National Productivity Day but I missed the deadline because I was busy being unproductive. Anyway, it’s all getting too productive for me, so I guess I’ll end here.

Feature Image Credits: Darius Foroux

 

Aditi Gutgutia

[email protected]

Comments are closed.