‘Nothing will come of nothing’: why it’s okay not to be productive
You’re lying in your bed snuggling beneath your duvet, still in your pyjamas and surrounded by a few empty boxes of Cadbury’s Easter eggs and half a bag of Dorito’s. You then begin to watch your 24th episode of Friends. It’s already 9 pm and, once again, you feel as if you have achieved nothing with your day.
Hopefully, this resonates with the way that many of us have felt since lockdown began – a guilty feeling that we should be doing something with all of this ‘extra’ time, but realistically lacking the motivation to do so.
Social media has been entirely unhelpful. A constant stream of articles telling us everything we must do during quarantine. A flurry of baking photographs and the knowledge that Shakespeare managed to write King Lear when the theatre industry came to a halt in 1606 due to the Great Plague is pretty unhelpful. For once, we’re going to have to ignore King Lear’s assertion that “nothing will come of nothing” as this is probably a good thing.
I feel I’ve been less productive with a lack of a set routine
It’s time to shake the mentality that being unproductive is not acceptable. In an interview with the New York Times, productivity expert Rachael Cook said that “there’s a huge push of people thinking that because we are home right now, we can be productive and that we’re all going to be as focused as we were a month or so ago, but that’s just not the case.”
There are many reasons for feeling this way, such as a strange sleeping pattern, lots of distractions, and the uncertainty surrounding the future of our education, which has led to so much stress and confusion.
“On the whole, I feel I’ve been less productive with a lack of a set routine,” says a first-year student I interviewed.
This attitude epitomises doing something for the sake of doing it
However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When reading about the benefits of being ‘unproductive’ during this time, I came across a Chinese term called wuliao. It translates to the “absence of conversation” or being “too bored”.
This attitude epitomises doing something for the sake of doing it, rather than to achieve some sort of end goal. This could be exercising for fulfilment and satisfaction, rather than to lose weight or get tones. Journalist Connie Wang suggests “wuliao, not productivity, should be the lockdown’s North Star, our quarantine philosophy.”
The equivalent in English is a term from the 1700s called quiddle, which means partaking in frivolous activities as a means of avoiding the important ones.
All my friends were engaging in a plethora of trivial activities
Speaking to those around me helped me to realise that this kind of philosophy was keeping us all sane. All my friends were engaging in a plethora of trivial activities to make it through the day. Colouring, baking, themed meals based on specific cultures, and binging everything under the sun on Netflix have all become a form of survival. As a friend encouraged, setting achievable personal goals is so important to feel as though you have accomplished something, whether that is academic work or not.
My routine has been very strange. I have started a new skincare routine, completely unnecessarily, but it passes the time. I’ve filled online baskets with heaps of clothes that I’m never going to buy (though I did accidentally purchase one of these baskets as they already had my card details). I’ve also made a Netflix bucket list, just so that I could stare vacantly at a screen for as long as possible.
Your mental health is more important than sticking to a strict productivity schedule
We shouldn’t feel that just because we have plenty of time, we should be knee-deep in our assignments. Our priorities should be feeling content and comfortable, whether that is being productive by speeding through assignments or lying in the bath for hours.
“This isn’t the only time in the world to be productive and get everything done. We have all the time in the world to do that when things to back to normal,” reflected one of my friends and I can’t help but agree.
Fill your day however you see fit. As a friend advised me – “take each day as it comes.” Ignore the unrealistic expectations of social media as it’s okay to spend the day in your pyjamas watching trashy television, if that’s what you want to do. Your mental health is more important than sticking to a strict productivity schedule.
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