When I first started online learning, I was under the pressure from myself to remain the same energy as when I was learning on campus. The energy can be easily described as the girl boss hustle culture. It’s always all over Instagram and Twitter. The kind of “good things happen to babes who hustle” kind of attitude where you’re working from 9am to 5pm then you have two side hustles on top of that. However, to me as a college student it means, that I am constantly grinding, and you can sleep when you’re on break with nothing to do.
Then the coronavirus hit, and I was on break with nothing to do. But, then this break at home vibe turned into the new normal, where my room would become my classroom and my house became my campus.
I was absorbing all the advice from articles, podcasts, and Instagram posts telling me that my schedule should not change and that I should treat my college schedule the same even if I am in a totally different location. This worked for me for about two weeks, then I hit a wall. I was constantly exhausted, and mentally not even there when I was attempting to do work. That’s when I said goodbye to the hustle culture that I was so used to. Now, I am doing this the way I want.
Now, I am not saying hustle culture is bad. There is nothing I love more than being a girl boss. But this is new territory in a global pandemic, and I can’t be a gal on the literal go because I can’t even leave my house. So I shut off my five alarms, and stopped outlining my day by the hour to be most productive.
It was not good for my mental health. It was not my choice to work from home. So I had to accept the fact that a quarantine day in my life is different than any other day in my life. What helped me get to this conclusion was Danielle Carolan’s video where 7 of her friends did a day in the life in their quarantine. Most of these college girls didn’t get up till 11 and only did one assignment then took an hour break. So why was I expecting myself to sit at my desk all day?
Now, my anti-hustle quarantine day in my life looks like: I wake up when I want, usually around 11ish, then sit in bed and check my phone, as we all do. Then I make some breakfast, maybe workout, or maybe just read a book that is not school related. During the day I relax and don’t set myself on a timer, which usually means I’ll spend at least an hour on TikTok during the day at some point. I usually get one assignment done during the day, but the bulk of my work is done post 10pm because that’s when my brain for some reason works the best.
We are all in unprecedented times, so everyone’s schedule looks different. If you want to get up at 7am and bang out work early in the morning or if you want to sleep in then gradually do work throughout the day, both are great just as long as it works for you. In quarantine try not to make your days reflect other people’s on Instagram or TikTok. Just take it day by day and get through it the best you can, it’s all you can do.