Productivity

It is hard to believe that spring break is just around the corner. For many of us, spring break is the time to see family and friends and to take a break from school and work. For some, it might be a chance to catch up on missed lectures. But for others, spring break is also the perfect time to put academics on hold and focus on preparing for your professional life. If that sounds exciting to you, here are some productive things you can do over spring break to prepare for life after college.

Despite the many drawbacks of life during COVID-19, it would seem that working from home has afforded some luxuries. Rolling out of bed, fixing breakfast, and commuting to work can all be done in one fell swoop, and we can now start our days in just five minutes. Yet, the numerous calls to reinstitute in-person classes point to the fact that we ultimately need separate work and home spaces to protect us from the greater insanity of living constantly in the same place in which we work.

With the University going virtual, most students are studying from home, tuning in to their classes from all across the globe. Although some students never had to adjust to a time zone difference while in New York, many students have been recalibrating their hours to EST since last March. Whether you are living three hours behind Morningside Heights on the West Coast or 11 hours ahead in East Asia, here are some tips to guide you through this tough time.

Back when Columbia was in-person, I made a regular habit of walking down Amsterdam to the Hungarian Pastry Shop. My trips usually started the same way: I would order and attempt to pay at the counter (with the cash I withdrew specifically for this event), only for the server to tell me, once again, that you pay when you leave. I’d take up too much space walking down the narrow corridor between tables and utter a consistent stream of apologies, primarily directed at the chairs I hit in my wake. I’d excuse-me my way to a table, pull out my laptop, and see that it had 9 percent battery remaining—barely enough to open a saved PDF, let alone write my essay. I’d confront the truth I’d known all along that intense productivity was not my top priority in coming here.

I lied on my first day of Music Humanities class. Our ice breaker included sharing the music we’d been listening to lately or music that we enjoy.

Living in another country for the past two years has allowed me to reflect on how U.S. culture (especially in New York) is hyper-individualized, especially in terms of eating meals. In New York, this culture can be seen in chain restaurants’ packaging being designed for food to be taken to-go. While I’ve seen Starbucks in other countries offer ample seating and mugs to sit down and enjoy your coffee “café-style,” Starbucks in the United States does not even offer mugs, while chains such as Sweetgreen and Chipotle automatically make your food to-go so that you can eat it while you’re in your next meeting or doing other activities.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt stuck in limbo, staring blearily out of a musky and dank library with a foggy headspace we can’t shake off. If you’re feeling unproductive, restless, and in search of a change of pace, you’ve come to the right place. Although Columbia is home to many libraries with various personalities, it’s totally OK to not want to spend the majority of your waking hours in one of them. Here’s a gentle reminder that there are plenty of other accessible options (within walking distance) around Morningside Heights for you to hunker down and power through all that work that’s been piling up.

Be honest. Is there an assignment you should be doing right now, instead of being online? Instead of mindlessly scrolling on Instagram or taking another nap, here’s a list of eight ways you can avoid that problem set and still feel productive. Just because you aren’t finishing that paper doesn’t mean you can’t get your life in some sort of order.

Oftentimes, I’ll convince myself that I need a tube of toothpaste just to walk to Duane Reade. I offer sick friends soup from Pret partially so I can take a stroll down Broadway and get a breath of fresh air. I’ve convinced myself that Barnard Fitness Center is superior to Dodge simply because the walk is longer.

Have you ever sat down to do homework but instead spent the entire time browsing columbia buy sell memes? Told yourself you would check Snapchat for five seconds but that turned into five hours?