Hello, lovelies! Today has been the most unmotivating day of my life. I’m usually very productive on Mondays, but I haven’t felt like doing anything today. The only things I got done were based on external motivations: went to class, met up with a friend, and did stuff for my job. Other than that, I couldn’t bring myself to get anything done. There were only five things on my to-do list, and I haven’t done a single one of them. I had every intention of posting a travel post I’ve been working on, but I just can’t do it. It’s 1 AM and I’ve only just found the drive to write this, so I’m going with it.
To preface, this wasn’t procrastination. It wasn’t that I was avoiding a task. I just couldn’t do it! I would just stare at my laptop screen and do nothing. So the list below is based on things I’ve done today alone. I hope you enjoy.
1.//Start A New Book When I Already Have Five Open
I have an hour and a half long break in between my first two classes, which I usually spend getting some work done. After meeting with my advisor about getting one of my transfer credits from two years ago approved, I went to the bookstore to buy headphones (Mine broke last weekend). I wandered around the “fun book” section, away from all the textbooks, and found a graphic novel that had recently come out. I ended up sitting on a couch for the next hour and finished 156 pages of the book. This is honestly fine, except for the fact that I’ll probably go back to the bookstore tomorrow to finish it instead of studying for my test on Wednesday. I also have five other books open right now that I’m really enjoying but need to wrap up. I don’t like having more than four books open at once, so six is a bit excessive. Even so, this is more of my “productive” things to do when I don’t feel like doing anything.
(I just realized that I have seven books open right now. I just haven’t updated my Goodreads. Either way, I need to decrease that number. )
2.//Pace Around My Room
I pace around my dorm room a lot. The same goes for when I’m at home, except I have the rest of the house available to me. I should just count this as exercise considering how much of this I do.
3.//Work Out
Normally when I hit a slump in the middle of the day, I go work out to refocus myself. Recently, I’ve had days where I don’t feel like exercising intensely, which leads to me not really doing anything at the gym. I realize that some exercise is better than no exercise, but I don’t feel the benefits of working out when I don’t work up a sweat.
4.//Nap To Avoid Working Out
This was me today. This is partly because I didn’t buy headphones at the bookstore since I had to run to class after reading the graphic novel, but I also just didn’t feel like it. I ended up taking a two-hour nap after eating lunch, which would have been refreshing if I didn’t have an exhausting dream. I ended up not starting work as planned after my nap.
5.//Snack
I’m slowly working my way through my Halloween candy (which I bought myself because unfortunately, I’m a grown-ass adult who can’t get free candy anymore).
6.//Deep Clean My Room
I normally obsessively clean my room while procrastinating, but I haven’t done that yet. Probably because I clean every Monday, and since it’s on my to-do list, I don’t feel like doing it. I’ll probably clean after publishing this.
7.//Watch YouTube
I don’t start new shows on Netflix or Hulu because I don’t like binge-watching things. It disrupts the flow of my day. I have a rule to only start shows during school breaks, which has kind of led me to not starting new shows at all because I don’t like the obsessive nature of binge-watching in general and don’t want to spend my breaks doing it.
My new vice is YouTube. I’ve found a lot of new channels recently, which has led to me to watch a lot of content from different creators. This has not helped my productivity, nor my reading goal since I usually read books on the bus instead of watching downloaded Youtube videos. I’ve been enjoying it though.
8.//Give Myself Permission To Do Nothing
This is what usually ends up happening. I give myself permission to rest then get a burst of energy at around 10 PM and finish a lot of work in the last two hours of the day. That did not happen tonight. I just continued doing nothing.
9.//Make To-Do Lists For The Week Trying To Make Up For The Time I Spent Doing Nothing
I make weekly to-do lists every Sunday then adjust each day as I go. This is a planning method that has worked for me over the past two years because there’s room for adjustment on days I do get things done and the days I don’t. Today, I didn’t get a single thing on my to-do list done, so I moved all five things throughout the week. I moved my study plan for today’s test to tomorrow, I’m publishing this blog post now in the middle of the night, and the extra “getting ahead” tasks can be moved to after my test. This step is part of my “giving myself permission to take a break” step. It gives me peace of mind that the things on my to-do list will get done eventually.
10.//Meet Up With A Friend
Similar to working out, hanging out with a friend always feels like a good use of my time. When I’m with someone else, I don’t feel the need to be productive. I can just be present and enjoy the other person’s company. Today’s meetup was previously planned, but I can totally think of situations where I’ve called up a friend to see if they could hang out simply because I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done anyway.
11.//Text A Friend To Come Over
This is honestly exactly like the previous point, but I wanted to include this other thing that happened today. It was 9 PM, and I had just finished dinner. This was when the first burst of procrastination started. I started texting my friend Cindy to come over after work because I hadn’t seen her in a few days, then stopped myself from hitting send because I knew she’d be tired. Less than an hour later, she knocked on my door to hang out for a bit before heading upstairs to shower after work. It was really nice talking to her, and, as I said above, gave me permission to not do anything. So shoutout to Cindy (who I know reads my blog) for reading my mind from three miles away.
12.//Take A Shower
Whenever I don’t feel like doing anything, showering feels like productive procrastination. It also helps me refocus myself. In fact, I thought of this blog post idea in the shower, which gave me the motivation to write, so maybe it did work.
13.//Stare At My Laptop Screen Instead Of Reading An Article
I have to read seven or eight articles every week divided among all my classes, so it’s a fairly regular homework task. Even so, there are days where I can’t bring myself to read them. I just stare at my laptop screen because I can’t even bring myself to skim the article to write down discussion points. I eventually gave up and decided to do it tomorrow morning because I was not in the headspace to read multiple 10-page articles.
14.//Think About Sleeping And Waking Up Early Tomorrow
That’s probably what I’ll end up doing. I can be a productive human tomorrow.
15.//Write A Bullsh*t Blog Post I Thought Of Five Minutes Ago
And finally, we’ve reached the point I’m at now. I wasn’t planning on writing this today. This wasn’t on my editorial calendar. I had a tab with the blog post that was supposed to go up on my laptop all day, but I couldn’t get myself to finish it. I’ve already written 1200 words on this document, so I guess you can say I felt inspired. Sometimes, you gotta draw content from your own experiences, and I did not feel like doing a single thing today.
It’s the next morning now, and I’m laughing my ass off because I was such a piece of sh*t yesterday. I did not have the motivation to get anything done. On a happier note, I woke up at 8 AM this morning before my alarm even though I fell asleep at 3:30 AM last night.
After I wrote this, I decided to wait on posting it till this morning before class because I didn’t feel like editing it or designing the image. I ended up deep cleaning my room, journaling about a nightmare I had, and preparing for today. Disney+ wasn’t supposed to launch until 6 AM this morning, but I downloaded the app because I knew I would want to log in today and it turns out that the app already worked! I made accounts for everyone in my family and fangirled for a bit before reading and falling asleep. (I’m glad I went through it last night because the website is crashing due to overactivity).
Anyway, the main goal for today is to study for my exam tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Related – 10 Ways I Refocus Myself During The Day (These normally work)
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What do you do when you don’t feel like doing anything?