We have all faced burnout. We have all faced deadlines creeping up, projects piling up and a period in our college lives where we put school ahead of ourselves. How do we balance both having a life and doing well in school all at the same time?
Social media influencers seem to have a simple answer: you cannot.
Enter the world of toxic study motivation and productivity content. This specific form of study content spans from manosphere-like productivity videos to young women telling their peers to watch ‘Gilmore Girls’ to “romanticize school.”
People are often told that they need to “lock in” and isolate themselves from the rest of world to “beat the competition,” while everyone else is supposedly wasting their precious time doing useless things – like hobbies and spending time with friends. You, the person watching their videos, are better than that.
However, there is a massive gap between you and the influencer. You procrastinate and do assignments late. The influencer, on the other hand? They are on five executive boards, do sports and somehow find time to do their homework and sleep. That means you are falling behind, at least in their perspective.
Good luck if you have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), especially if it is undiagnosed. They frequently just convince you that you’re lazy, unreliable and not cut out for the rigorous schedule that college life entails.
How disgustingly wrong they are. College life is undeniably hard, but this form of productivity advice just makes it worse.
How do you escape this toxic slop? You first have to realize that school is not the center of your life. College is supposed to be a stepping stone, not a stumbling block.
Never take school so seriously that you forget who you actually are. Some of us are too familiar with feeling like we have lost our souls to the everlasting grind, to work
that is not meaningful to us. There are two major factors of productivity: organization and prioritization – to know what you actually need to do and how to rank it by personal importance. This is important to actually getting tasks done. They can also mean different things for different
people. Organization can look like using Notion for me but a physical calendar for someone else. Prioritization can look like putting writing first for me but putting radio work first for someone else. Regardless, without these two factors, you’ll be looking at an unproductive week packed with feelings of disappointment.
It is also important to do work that interests you beyond academia. Write for your own Substack or Medium page, build a program for some obscure tech problem, be a content creator, draw and paint as much as your muse allows. Do whatever makes you “you.” You will learn your work process, as well as how to get into “the flow state.” The momentum that you build carries over to your other work. You are not falling behind if you do not have 20 projects, internships or job offerings lined up. Doing what you are passionate about should be your standard of success.
Additionally, your productivity routine does not have to be insane. 12 hours of studying is not necessary to do well in your classes. You do not need excessive amounts of stimulants to function, especially if you cannot handle that much caffeine. You do not need to be in a dark room with no windows pretending to “lock in.”
The strange rituals from the internet will not work because they were not made for you. You need to experiment – consider different types of music to listen to while you do your work, think about different places you would like to work in, whether it is the Pride Den, your dorm, the library or somewhere else that is a little bit more chaotic.
Whatever you choose, make sure it is based on what you learned about yourself. Never let toxic content that tries to make you feel like a failure control your understanding of productivity and your self-worth.
