#the other thing is setting fake deadlines so make myself panic into doing things ahead of time. but unfortunately that doesnt work either | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iampikachuhearmeroar · 3 years

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did anyone else feel like everything in uni was just.... too much to handle???? like do this internship! do this extra curricular program! and this one and this one and this one!!!! all to prove how involved you are!!! build all your soft skills and hard skills and professional brand/identity now!!! what are you doing????? dicking around like that????? you have no time to dick around!!!!! DO IT NOW??!!! WHERES YOUR LINKEDIN??? WHERE ARE YOUR AND WHAT ARE YOUR CAREER GOALS AND YOUR CAREER ROADMAP????!!! WHY DONT YOU CARE ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND BEING INNOVATIVE???? OH BY THE WAY WHERE ARE YOUR ASSIGNMENTS ON TOP OF ALL THIS OTHER BS YOU’RE MEANT TO DO AND CARE ABOUT????!!!!!

like bro you’re causing me and probably everyone else to have mental breakdowns and feel like failures if they don’t do all these things all at once at uni. sorry i couldn’t manage an internship bc i only got my licence after i graduated???? sorry that i felt like those programs would take too much energy out of me???? sorry i forgot to turn in all those bs personal reflections you wanted me to have done for that extra curricular program that i signed up for where i never got hired for any of the positions i applied for anyway???? sorry i don’t give a fuck about my professional image and how to set up a personal brand i have no fucking energy left to give a flying fucking fuck about it. why the fuck does it even matter??? and fuck your entrepreneurship and innovation/hustle lifestyle bs spiels! why the fuck am i supposed to care about these????? when my mental health is so fucking depleted that i had a panic attack to the point of throwing up in the bathroom over making my linkedin account and being a “budding professional”???? why don’t my studies count as being involved on campus???? because they’re literally all i can fucking handle, just barely???? like how much fucking energy and time do you think i fucking have???? thanks for your fake ass mental health events that don’t really work either. just fuck why can’t i dick around like you’re really supposed to do at uni???? how the fuck else am i meant to relax if i’m always meant to be thinking about hustling and all that bullshit??? hello???? why will no one answer me???? fuck you.

like obvs i know people will react to this with comments such as: “that’s why and how you’re meant to learn time management at uni!!! look at all the cute study hacks on tiktok to help you ☺️!” and “that’s how you learn how to handle multiple workloads and deadlines and stuff!!” or “that’s how college/uni simulates the real world of employment!!! if you can’t deal with this at college/uni maybe you should’ve just dropped out and realised that you needed to toughen up princess!!!” or whatever else. but y’all. like it was chronic. i was always tired. always burnt out. i felt like i had no time to “find myself “ or whatever the trope or expectation of uni is supposed to be. instead i was just hammered, to what felt like death, with “be entrepreneurial and grind/hustle your way to the top every day!!!! only care about your professional image and brand! everyone has one! do 10 internships today to prove your eligibility/validity and motivation to employers so you get into a grad program!!! hustle hustle hustle! innovate innovate innovate! where are your start up ideas to fix the entire world in a day???? here’s all these never ending deadlines for 50+ extracurriculars that you HAVE to meet otherwise you won’t get the award for these programs officially to show employers!” etc etc etc. but it honestly felt like so, so, so much to do and i felt guilty because i felt like i had absolutely no interest in half of the ECs, let alone, even the “required marks” (because more than half of the ECs at my uni required at least a 75 or distinction average) to get into like mentor high school kids or idek do a business incubator program or whatever the bullshit EC program options were.

and that above is not even counting the reflections that you had to do to say “yeah i did this program and i felt it was good and i learnt A/B/C about myself through this program so it’s defs enhanced my employability skills” to even be considered to be taking part in the program. it was all too fucking much on too little time and i fucking hated it. and that’s besides the point that i was focussing solely on all the employability workshops for my “career” and got literally fucking nothing out of them. like why can’t uni just be a time to dick around and find yourself, instead of doing useless fucking employability circus bullshit and hearing time and time again about the “entrepreneurial mindset” and how to “never turn off your brain for innovation and the hustle to be ahead of everyone else???? hurry up and have a side hustle like tutoring to show just how much initiative you have!!!!!” like i just don’t understand how my advanced diploma, my undergrad arts degree, and my albeit short lived and failed attempt at my postgrad degree dont show ENOUGH initiative to employers. i fucking hate it.

and i also i understand that me complaining about this after the fact (and also while i was at uni from 2015-2018/doing postgrad in 2019) can be seen as “oh you were just too lazy to get yourself together and grow up! typical millennial/gen z! too selfish to grow up and be part of the big, bad adult world!” but y’all. there needs to be more down time for students and less of a push to be “entrepreneurial” and all that bullshit during uni/college; so you’re not pushed to your absolute limits at uni til you have a mental breakdown and drop out/defer for a semester or a year. and that’s besides the fact that even in my fucking 3 month breaks at the end of every year i was actually BUYING my texts or textbooks early and doing some of my readings (books) MONTHS ahead of time and MONTHS ahead of even knowing the revised sets of texts (because half the time i bought them so early that i hd no idea that the prof had taken like 4 diff books off some courses and replaced them w/ other books instead for example) so i really had no proper downtime anyway. like i was utterly run off of my feet and i was burnt the fuck out every fucking year of my undergrad degree and also my postgrad and also business college in 2014; which was at least 50+ page assignments every fucking week. like that should count as initiative to employers.... but apparently it fucking doesn’t??? im fucking sick of y’all what the actual fuck do you want????

#life #about me #shut up ilona #uni #uni life #ok i’m no longer in uni but did anyone else feel this????#i fucking hated it so much #and it’s why i burnt out so badly #besides the point that i’d studied flat out from 2014 til 2019 w/o real proper uni breaks

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aspire-to-the-light · 6 years

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Executive Momentum 2: Combo breakers and self-care infohazards

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Sometimes I succeed at something, and then I feel proud and productive and capable and good. So I feel motivated to succeed at more things, and I build up a streak. Every aversive task gradually becomes easier, because I feel confident and I’m on a roll. Every distraction becomes less and less tempting, because I haven’t thought about them in a while and they’re just not very salient. I get into flow and tasks become effortless and focus doesn’t require any willpower.

If I’ve just sent five aversive emails, it’s easier to send the sixth because I feel almost like I’ve practised - I just type out the same “dear x / best wishes, y” thing that I typed out five times already today, add some information, and casually hit the “send” button. On the first email it always feels somewhat like I’ll hit “send” and the world will end, but by the sixth email my system one has usually accepted that I will not be instantly smited when I hit “send” and everything will actually be fine.

I work more efficiently, so I finish tasks faster, so I end up with extra time on my hands, so I get even more ahead of schedule and become less and less stressed about everything I have to do. I make it to all my appointments on time and organize maintenance-tasks on schedule, so everything is set up for me to succeed - I have meds from my doctor, piles of advice on essay-writing from my tutor, snacks in my cupboard in case I get hungry but I’m too focused on work to want to cook, the right amount of scheduled social events for me to meet my extraverting needs.

I get into a routine and good habits, so I’m less likely to forget important things (eating, drinking, taking my meds, showering) and it’s easier to start work at 10am because 10am is just when I start work, this is routine, I do this every day. Getting my morning routine done efficiently lets me start my day with more focus and energy. My evening routine means that I get to sleep on time and get enough sleep, so I’m not only always well-rested, but my sleep schedule is consistent enough that I can agree to commitments at X time without worrying that I’ll be asleep at X time and unable to make it.

I feel awesome about myself and my productivity, and proud of the work I’m doing, so the work feels good and affirming. I get really deep into the subjects I’m studying, so they feel more interesting. I clear my backlog of tasks, so suddenly work doesn’t feel overwhelming or aversive or like I’m drowning in too much to do, because my goals feel real and achievable and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

I end up not even wanting to procrastinate. I've been away from Facebook long enough that I find I’m just not interested in it any more. I’ve forgotten what my video game rank even is, so I don’t feel any pressure to play more to increase it. I haven’t distracted myself with Discourse in ages, so Discourse doesn’t feel particularly salient and it just doesn’t even cross my mind to tempt me.

This is what a really good life looks like, for me.

Self-care memes are an infohazard.

This is not true for everyone. There are plenty of people who don’t work like the above. I do tasks all day and feel proud of myself and motivated to do more tasks; some other people do tasks all day and feel tired and burned out. Those are the people who need self-care memes.

(And it isn’t a binary either, it’s a spectrum from one to the other. Everyone will feel tired and burned out if they do enough hard work, it’s just differences in the level of “enough hard work” and the seriousness of “burned out”.)

Self care is an infohazard for me, and probably for anyone else whose brain works like mine.

I do a bunch of tasks and feel good about myself. Then I reach some kind of natural stopping point - maybe I’ve finished one essay and it’s time to start on another. At this point, I could continue on my positive feedback loop, write the other essay, and have a really good day. But there’s often a voice in my brain that says do we have to, I don’t want to write an essay, I’d rather watch a movie.

There’s certainly an argument for this voice representing some kind of real need that I should respect. But there are ways to respect this need that are better (take a fifteen minute break to do an easy non-essay-related task like tidying my room, while drinking some coffee) and ways to respect this need that are worse (spend the rest of the day on Twitter).

And when I’m deep enough into my positive feedback loops, this voice goes away. When I’m in a really good place and I’ve been getting all my essays in on time, essay-writing feels good and flow-y, and the subject I’m studying feels fascinating, and Twitter just doesn’t feel very tempting. So I’m inclined to think that this voice maybe doesn’t represent the most important need in the world.

Self-care memes, all too often, give ammunition to this voice.

I should write the next essay. If I write the next essay it’ll be interesting, I’ll feel good about myself, I won’t have a panic later tonight about whether I’ll miss the deadline. And it’s better to start the next essay now when I’m still in flow from the last essay, rather than take a break and then have to exert a huge force of willpower to get started again. But the voice says, “Come on. Everyone needs a break sometimes. It’s okay to take time for yourself! You’re tired. If you need to watch a movie to feel better, you should watch a movie. Take care of yourself and you’ll make up for it by being even more productive later. Just one movie.”

So then I watch a movie.

...and then my brain is in movie-mode, and starting work again feels aversive, and I’m kind of emotional about the ending and curious about what happens next to the characters, so I watch the sequel. And then I am impressed by the sequel so I want to write on social media about it. And then I’m distracted by social media. And then I get into a negative feedback loop and stay up til 4am and then have a panic about how I’m going to miss the essay deadline. So then I give up on life and watch twenty movies, feeling successively more guilty about each one and enjoying each less, until I’m watching crappy horror movies and crying about how it’s impossible for me to do anything and I’ll never achieve my dreams.

It’s so important for me, right now, to get these ideas out of my head. “Ahh, I have done a good few tasks, so now I’ve earned a break and can scroll Facebook” is a poisonous way of thinking, for me, because scrolling Facebook doesn’t ever make me happy. It’s more of a cached thought about what a small part of me thinks that I want, than something I actually want. It just kills my good feedback loop and sends me on the path towards Being Up At 4am Crying Because I’ve Done Nothing.

But it’s really hard, because “if you have done lots of work, then you deserve a relaxing break, and should do whatever thing you’ve been having distracting intrusive-thought impulses to do” is so ingrained in all of us. It feels like the entire of social media and all your friends and your teachers get together to be all “TAKING BREAKS IS IMPORTANT AND OKAY! DON’T BURN OUT!” and it takes quite a while to do enough introspection, gain enough confidence, and be aware enough of the influence, that you can respond, “Nope, my brain does not work that way.”

These memes are probably important for lots of people. I am sure there are people who need to be concerned about burn-out, and ensuring they don’t work too hard, but I have the opposite problem where if I don’t work hard enough then I feel awful about myself and lose myself in a maze of instant-gratification activities that are never actually that gratifying and only make me feel dead inside.

I do need to do self-care. But self-care for me looks different. Self care usually means switching tasks - from something intellectual to something physical, or vice versa. If I’ve been doing an essay, I should switch to physical exercise or tidying my room. If I’m tired after carrying groceries home, I should sit down quietly and process some emails. But I should make sure that I keep doing things I endorse, that give me a sense of achievement and let me keep my flow. Small easy tasks are often good, because I can complete them quickly and then reward myself with a square of chocolate - so it’s good self care if I tidy my desk and treat moving each individual item off my desk as though it’s an achievement.

Social interaction is also very important, but that doesn’t mean idle small talk. Social interactions that feel aligned with my goals, like teamwork meetings or update-each-other-about-work-progress discussions or how-should-we-improve-ourselves conversations or interacting while doing a task together, tend to be better and leave me feeling more refreshed and happier. Politics debates occasionally leave me feeling good when they felt like practise as to how to construct a good argument and/or when papers were cited and I learned something, but fairly rarely.

Language learning apps have been really wonderful for me. I used to use Duolingo, and have recently switched to Lingvist. They give me tiny, easy, achievable rewards - every question I answer correctly, I get to feel proud of myself - but unlike video games, the rewards don’t feel fake or flimsy. Learning new languages is consistent with my long-term goals and meshes well with my intellectual versatile internationalist identity, so it leaves me feeling happy and self-consistent rather than hollow and not-like-myself. But simultaneously, I can do Lingvist on my phone while curled up under some blankets in bed and munching on a toastie, so it actually meets whatever legitimate need is hidden underneath the you-should-take-a-break impulse. After I’ve done some language-learning, my mind is in an intellectual career-focused flow-y sort of mode and that makes it easier to get going on tasks again.

Realising that self-care-as-usually-advocated was infohazardous for me was a fairly small part of something bigger and harder.

When I’m in a negative feedback loop, being distracted and feeling guilty about it and being unfocused and stressed and demotivated and getting no work done and fucking up my sleep schedule, it’s fairly obvious to me that I need to break the loop. Reset somehow. Go to sleep, and when I wake up, it’ll be a new day. Go exercise and work the emotions off, and try to work again after getting back from the gym. Take a shower to ground and calm down, then switch tasks and see if that helps.

I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out the importance of not breaking positive feedback loops, and sustaining them. “If you’re enjoying work and in flow, don’t take a break and do distracting unhappymaking things like scrolling facebook” is, uh, fairly low level and in-your-face.

I should try and set things up so that I won’t be distracted when I’m in flow. I should avoid scheduling Skype calls in the middle of a work period. If I need to do something that might break my loop, like going outside or handling something tiring, I should push that to the end of my day where if it goes badly then I can just reset my loop by going to sleep and getting a fresh new day.

I’ve taken some steps that were really helpful. It was great when I ditched my to-do list and replaced it with a schedule. When I need to remember to do a task, I just schedule “do this task” for the next time period when I’m free to do the task. That means a bit more of my time is taken up with rescheduling - I get given an essay deadline of Friday, so I schedule “do the essay” for Wednesday and Thursday, so I have to take the paperwork currently scheduled for Wednesday and bump it to Saturday - but it means that I don’t have my loops broken by being unsure what task to do next and ending up doing unendorsed things.

It’s also helped to think of lots of tradeoffs in terms of sustaining positive feedback loops. If it’s late but I’m working productively, should I stay up to sustain my productive-working-and-getting-stuff-done loop, or go to sleep to sustain my routine-and-sleeping-on-time loop? Which loop has the bigger feedback multiplier, which is harder to sustain / easier to break, which loop is more important not to break?

It’s not just important to avoid “self care” like ditching work and going on Facebook. It’s important to avoid breaks. If university terms have holidays in between, I should make sure I regularly schedule reading academic things over the break, so that I sustain my “read about my subject, so become interested in my subject, so want to read more about the subject” loop. I should put very high importance on never skipping regularly-scheduled things even if I think I have a very good reason for skipping. If something isn’t bad by itself, but makes me think about unproductive things - I endorse getting a graphic design job, but it might make me think about art, and then the voice in my head would say things like “why don’t you take a break and draw some fictional characters fighting a monster” - then I should probably avoid it for the sake of mental purity.

It’s important to not take on so many commitments that I can’t handle them all, but equally important to avoid a situation where I have not enough commitments. There always needs to be a task for me to do that feels important, is endorsed, has concrete good consequences for doing it that I can feel good about, has some negative consequence if I don’t do it (even just “I let this person down”) so that I’m not tempted to just-not-do-it, is challenging enough to engage me, and contributes in some way towards me being-more-of-the-person-I-want-to-be and achieving-long-term-goals. If I end up with free time, then I might fill it with movies and gaming and social media, and that would only make me unhappy.

If you’re completely at the other end of the spectrum, and work tires you, and you need breaks to make you feel better, then I probably sound like a manic workaholic who is going to burn out horrifically any day now and crash terribly. I offer you a deal; don’t try to rescue me by persuading me to take breaks and watch movies, and I won’t try and rescue you by pressuring you to avoid any non-work activity.

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