I’ll admit it: I’m pretty weak-willed when it comes to self-study. As an English student, what overwhelms me the most is not necessarily the difficulty but the sheer volume of my workload. Having to plough through up to 600 pages a week (and I’m on the lighter side!) often feels insurmountable, leading to a counterproductive sort of ‘paralysis’ wherein I get nothing done at all. That’s not the only thing that affected my ability to study either. Like lots of students, I struggle with my mental health. Finding the motivation to work, the enthusiasm to attend classes and the will to not drop out—which I very nearly did—is extremely difficult when you’re depressed and want to lay in bed all day. Having no energy to prepare means having to avoid class that week. Before long, you realise you haven’t actually attended since January, and it’s now March. I wanted to come up with a plan, a ritual, a routine, that wouldn’t let me wind up in that same position–hence, a 9-5 study week.
I entered third year with new weapons in my arsenal: for the first time in my life, I was medicated. I felt better, not only because of the effects of the medication on my wellbeing, but also because one of the side-effects is drowsiness–having suffered with insomnia since the age of about five, I feel immeasurably grateful for the fact that now I’m knocked out by nine. Being asleep by nine means being awake by six, which means that I’m well-rested (thus intellectually equipped) for the day ahead. All the positive effects of treatment needed to be utilised for good, I thought, or it would be a waste. I think that it’s
I make sure to get to the library at nine o-clock in the morning. On the days I have class at nine-thirty, I use that half-hour to reacquaint myself with the readings—I have gotten into the routine of studying a week in advance, so I cover week three’s content while I have classes for week two, then week four’s content during week three, et cetera. Sometimes, I’ll get the classes mixed up or forget what paper argued which theory, so that thirty minutes can be a helpful remedy. I will say, though, that my mental organisation and retention is getting better week-by-week. On days where I don’t have class so early, I dig straight into preparations for the next week, whether it be a critical essay, literary theory or the first few chapters of a novel.
Now, my second confession is that I am absolutely addicted to social media. It was initially really hard to keep my attention on a piece of reading, even just for twenty minutes; I’d find myself checking the time, finding an excuse to get up and walk around the library or picking up my phone to laugh at some idiotic Instagram reel my friends had sent me. Oh dear. Over time, though, the more I began to associate the library with productivity, and the more I accepted that I would be there for eight hours either way, my attention span improved. Currently, depending on what I’m reading, I can last anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half without wondering when it’s lunch time. Honestly, this progress reminds me of my first hospitality job: by the end of my first shift, which was two hours, my feet were numb. A year later, I could work for fourteen hours straight, and then afterwards walk another hour home
Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of moments where I feel like I could have been more productive than I was. As Molly-Mae famously preached, “there are twenty four hours in a day.” Why am I only spending eight of them in the library? I have some friends who go to bed at eleven and wake up at five, and others who spend their weekends with their noses buried deep into epic poetry. Why am I not doing the same? The thing is, mental illness is exacerbated by stress. I’ve spent my life desperately trying to keep up with normal people, of course, failing every time; I get trapped in a rapid cycle of hyper-productivity, followed by prolonged burnout. So, this year, I decided to be radical: if forty hours per week is not enough to get everything done, then I’m not doing it.
This rule has by far been the most rewarding. It’s what permits me to relax when I’m at home, rather than feeling guilty about being unproductive. Whether I want to endlessly scroll TikTok, sleep for twelve hours or binge watch a comfort show, I’m allowed to because I worked hard during the day. Sometimes you just have to remember that your flat won’t burn down if you bin off five pages of Descartes.
There have been other things I’ve committed to as well—for example, no drinking during the week and no staying out past 8pm when I have to be up early in the morning—but they’re more about adhering to the routine than anything else. That being said, have I stuck to it?
No.
At least, not every day. Old habits die hard, and my mental illness—perhaps like yours—is not something I can always ignore in favour of my busy schedule. There have been Mondays that were so exhausting I had to take Tuesday off, and there have been three-hour study sessions where I annotated two A5 pages. My first reaction is to believe the overwhelming voice in my head that tells me I am a failure; that I can never get anything done and so I might as well quit while I’m ahead. It’s a common symptom of mental illness to think in black and white ways. But do you know what I can do instead, and what wasn’t so obvious to me before? I can take the day off—fail today—and then wake up at six tomorrow and try again. Instead of viewing my studies as sudden-death, thinking that I had to do everything today and that doing nothing meant I was doomed, the 9-5 reshaped my thinking. What if I did four days of work instead of five? Wouldn’t that be better than nothing? What if there is always tomorrow? What if I just kept going?