I have been doing my classes virtually for over a month now because of the Coronavirus, and yet sometimes it still feels like I have not quite adjusted to it. Don't get me wrong, I do have some really productive days (usually the day before everything is due…oops). However, other days it feels like I do nothing more than sit around in my room thinking about that really long to-do list that has been haunting me since the morning.
Procrastinating in quarantine is like sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office. You can only scroll through social media and flip through outdated magazine pages so many times before you start feeling like you are going to lose your mind. You will do anything instead of completing work that you need to get done. I have often found myself cleaning the entire kitchen or manically baking too many cupcakes well past midnight in order to avoid assignments. (My family has been pretty happy with these new developments, but my to-do list is not so pleased.)
When I finally sit down to do work, I complete it efficiently. "Wow!" I think to myself. "That really wasn't so bad." I look at my watch. Not much time has passed, but my solid half hour of work deserves a break, right? Off to the kitchen I go for a celebratory snack. My to-do list will not see my return for an embarrassingly long time.
Social media doesn't really help much either. Many people are posting things about staying positive, which is great, except that I think I take their advice a little too literally. "You deserve a break!" and "Take care of yourself!" are all over Instagram stories about self-care. I quickly close my laptop and head to the bathroom for a face mask and then the kitchen to blend a smoothie from the new recipe I just found.
What I am trying to say is that if you are a procrastinator in quarantine, I get you. There are only so many things that you can do before it is just you and that mocking to-do list. Maybe you have tried every trick in the book to get your work done. You have set alarms to remind you to complete assignments in a certain time frame, you have way too many post-it notes spread out across your room with urgent due dates scribbled on them, and you have even read some articles about how to stop yourself from procrastinating.
At the end of the day, the only thing you can do is face that annoying to-do list. I believe in you. Good luck, my fellow procrastinator.
