Daisy Dewsnap: Pressure to be productive

Fifteen-year-old Daisy, who lives in Mossley and attends Saddleworth School, writes for the Reporter...

I wanted to talk about a subject I’ve seen quite a lot about on social media recently. As a student, I really wanted to address it myself and give my opinion on it.

With what’s been going on in the world recently, I think that it’s forced a lot of us to slow down and adjust to a new way of life.

Everyone is going to be experiencing this time period differently. Some people will find it much harder than others and some will be enjoying it much more than others. 

I, for one, am really enjoying it on the whole and I have made some lovely memories in the past 20 weeks. 

I missed school much more than I thought I would though and I’m certainly missing all of my friends, but I can’t wait to start back in September for my final year of high school.

I think that with this different way of life comes quite a lot of pressure to be productive and to constantly be doing ‘something’. 

The media is insisting that we use all of the free time on our hands to start a new hobby, exercise, learn a new language, practice self-care, declutter our desks or organise our rooms...

For many people, this is a great time to start all of these things and many people will be thrilled with this new-found opportunity for self-growth. 

But for others, this pressure to be constantly productive will also affect their mental health and people will feel guilty when they’re not being productive.

I try my best to be productive most of the time and I try to achieve as many things as I can each day. 

But there are days, for all of us, when we feel a little less motivated and we won’t get everything ticked off our to-do list.

I found a few quotes that I loved regarding this subject that I wanted to include:

“Focus on being productive instead of busy” - Tim Ferriss.

“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax” - Mark Black.

“Your worth is not measured by your productivity.”

Don’t get me wrong, routines are so important! 

But you can’t pour from an empty cup and we’re in a global pandemic too. This isn’t normal, so we don’t have to try to act normal. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself and letting yourself take frequent breaks from the work load.