On Being Productive... Again...
A comfortable environment is crucial to being productive in: doing homework/studying/working/generally being creative. What constitutes a comfortable environment varies for everyone. Well, this much is obvious. What's not quite so obvious is that: a) it may takeyears for people to discover their ideal "productive environment" and b) said ideal "productive environments" might become less and less effective over time.
This is true for me anyway. And it sucks. Especially if, like me, you commute to school. See, it's my senior year of college, and I need to write my Senior Thesis. The problem? Home is no longer a productive environment for me. At all. No. For quite a while now, I would sit down to try to work on my thesis (or hell, even just to do regular homework) and then it would suddenly be 1:30 am and I'll realize I've done absolutely nothing.
But how could I possibly be productive at home when everyone is always arguing and/or discussing topics I would rather not hear about and/or being generally loud and distracting? And one would think my noise-cancelling headphones would save me. They did at first, but that "safe" feeling quickly died away considering they give me headaches. Ah, that's another big problem. I'll get headaches with or without the headphones.
What about my room, you may ask? I'm not quite sure why but working in my room depresses me. I don't know why, it just does.
Now there's no way I'll be able to finish my thesis on time in such an environment. So today, I decided to change it up and stay on campus to work on my thesis. Specifically, I went backstage at DeBaun. And you know what? I.got.stuff.done. Not -quite- as much as I would've wanted, but I blame the Senior Thesis Formatting meeting smack dab in the middle of my being productive for interrupting me. Still, I got stuff done, more than I have the past 2 weeks. Ha.
So what does my "productive environment" need?
Music (or TV as background noise, as long as the show/movie isn't overly distracting): I can't work in complete silence. And just people talking won't cut it for me.
Friends (not Family): I seem to work better when I'm surrounded by people I'm comfortable with. For the past few years, I've been dying to have a study group session or whatever. Just a bunch of friends around a table working on stuff. Not necessarily the same thing, but just working. I finally got that today and it was nice.
A comfortable enough chair/seat: I am SO SICK of my usual spot at the dining room table. It makes my back hurt. And we won't have a new couch for who knows how long. Though I didn't need it today, backstage has a couch. <3
My best friend being online: My recent experience trying to work at home (and failing most of the time) has shown me that I'm slightly more productive if my sissy is on. You would think she'd be distracting, but I'm actually more distracted if I don't have someone to talk to every few minutes or so. Now I don't know whether this will apply to my new productive environment at DeBaun, but I'll still talk to sissy regardless, so it doesn't matter.
Drinks: I'm talking water and tea/coffee. Home has water, but not coffee, and tea takes too much effort to make. DeBaun has all three and doesn't require any overly-unwanted effort to acquire. Woot.
So until my Women's Golf class starts up, I'll be working on my Senior Thesis backstage at DeBaun. <3
...Oh, look at that, it's 1AM and I've done nothing since I got home. THE IRONY. Sure, you could blame this entry (actually, every entry I've written tonight since I got home). I was writing them instead of working on my thesis. But really, I blame the massive headache I'm currently suffering. And I already took some ibuprofen/motrin/advil/whatever you want to call it (it's all the same, really). It didn't help in the slightest.
Well, this week is Spring Break, so of course, I'm stuck at home. I've been surprisingly productive the past two days, but it's going to be extra hard today because grandma's here and things get LOUD when she's here. I woke up at 9AM to her damn loud yelling, so I immediately knew my day was going to suck-AND OMG SHE'S YELLING RIGHT NOW!
I really don't want this week to be over because I still have SO MUCH to do, but at the same time, I really want to get back to school because I can concentrate so much better there. As much as I love my noise-cancelling headphones, they give me headaches (or in this case, because I'm still recovering from oral surgery, make them worse) and I have to have them on at practically full blast to be able to tune out the drama, the yelling, and the overall stupidity that goes on here.
*Sigh* Anyway, I'm off to finish chapter 3 of my thesis and then I have to read for History of Photography.
PS - The weather is frigging GORGEOUS today and it SUCKS CHICKENBUTT because I have so much homework to do I can't even allow myself the pleasure of going outside. I had my two days of rest when I had my wisdom teeth pulled at the beginning of the week, I can't afford any more time off. DX
