A Procrastinator on Productivity

lessons about nothing particularly important

Right now, I have one foot in the trenches of college applications and the other in my bed. That is to say: I am very lazy about all this college stuff. The November 1 deadline looms, but it’s unthreatening, like a very large elephant in the room, its presence stifling every room that contains a senior.

1. part one: stock up on hobbies.

When I first landed in Virginia, I swore myself to academic excellence. My middle school years, characterized by the beginning of a gaming addiction and ballet burnout, led to three great years of unspectacular report cards. So for freshman year of high school, I went cold turkey on video games and everything artsy, and—I was really miserable! I still checked daily for updates on Silksong, indie hit game Hollow Knight’s sequel, and reminisced about my short-lived watercolour bookmark business.

Then I ‘accidentally’ picked up crochet at the end of sophomore year. And I redownloaded Terraria to cure my exam stress. Suddenly, the tide of everything I wanted to pursue outside of school came tumbling out, uncontrollable, entirely terrifying, and the facade of the perfect international student I’d curated for myself—not my parents—exploded as well.

Because it was summer, I let it go. I returned for junior year rejuvenated and feeling weirdly reborn, like it was going to be the happiest year of my life. I continued to play Terraria (until Steam wiped my data, so I bought Cuphead), crocheted a beanie for my sister’s birthday, and started painting again.

It seems counterintuitive to spend more time using up time, but hobbies appear to decrease one’s susceptibility to procrastination. In other words, instant gratification is a hard game to play when it’s multivariable calculus versus thirty minutes of Nintendo sports volleyball. The lesson, therefore, is to indulge in your hobbies whenever you want and reap the benefits of self-care.

2. part two: multiple showers a day?

Food for thought: I go to boarding school and live in a dorm, so I don’t foot the water bill. Nevertheless, my roommate would like to remind people to be mindful of water use, because too much of anything kills the planet.

I took a morning shower today with the heat turned up to near boiling. There is a certain medicinal quality to showering in solitude and silence, before the telltale shuffle of slippers rolls down the hallway. I propped my phone up against the wall so I could watch the time and waited anxiously for the water to run hot. I am extremely and irrefutably against cold showers.

My 11th-grade biology teacher asked the class if we had ever eaten an orange in the shower. Statistically, someone would say yes, and someone did, but it wasn’t me. He cited the “relaxing properties of orange juice.” Showers are very personalized; of the many things we cannot control, a shower routine is not one of them. Somehow, in the wake of dawn, the cusp of a day’s beginning, the routine feels slower, like honey. Perhaps it is that there is no gritty negativity from the day to cleanse off.

Still, nighttime showers remain uncontested. There is no greater joy, in my opinion, than climbing into a crispcold (in one word, like German) Twin XL bed at eleven, the orange hue of our TV in my periphery. It feels like home.