Media Room

Being More Productive

Backstory

Throughout my early life, I was usually quite active during my waking hours of each day. Whether I was attending class or summer camp during the day. Being involved with after school activities in the afternoon, participating in martial arts in the evening. And going grocery shopping with my mom on the weekends; I seemed to always be up to something productive. When I entered high school, though, my daily productivity slowed down a bit.

I was still attending class during the day, but when the final bell rang, I went straight home. This would go on for the majority of my time in high school. I also didn’t have any friends to hang out with after school or on the weekends. About halfway through my senior year, I signed up at a gym. The gym was about a 5 minute walk from my school. I would go there after school a couple times a week. Another thing to mention, during the summer break during my high school years, I was no longer going to summer camp.

When I entered college, my productivity increased slightly. I would often stay on campus after my classes to do homework by myself or with classmates. Or I’d be able to hang out with someone for a bit.

The Dark Times

When the pandemic hit, it felt like everything was crumbling beneath my feet. I was extremely depressed as I’m sure most people were during the beginning of the “dark times”. I was stuck at home, rarely had the opportunity to socialize with peers, and hardly had energy to do anything at all. So my productivity decreased significantly.

Sprinkles of Hope?

In July/August of 2020, I was able to start my journey as a “rapper” which you can read about here. When things began opening back up again, I continued going to the gym and was doing online classes. All of this still didn’t feel like enough though, so my depression continued.

In September 2021, I started working here at TurningPointCT as the Social Media Assistant. While the job is remote and only 5 hours a week, I did have more opportunities to socialize with more people during events or get togethers with coworkers.

Graduating from college in May 2022 left me with one less productive activity. So I signed up for personal training at my gym in July 2022. You can read about my personal training journey so far here.  Doing this helped me go consistently at least once a week, at most 2-3 times a week.

For the past 6 months, I’ve been seeing my personal trainer at the gym once a week. I’ve been trying to go another day or two during the week to work out on my own. With that, I try working this job and occasionally going to the studio to record another song.  

Through this, my social anxiety is very high due to losing a lot of social skills during lockdown.  It’s become very difficult for me to interact with people in person. So I tend not to, which I sometimes find ironic. In person socialization with peers is one of the main things I yearn for in my life.

Rising Up

A few months ago, I began taking a new medication for my depression after previous ones failed to help much.  This current medication that I am taking is helping quite a bit; I’ve been feeling more motivated and less sluggish most days.

I feel I’ve been more productive during these past few weeks than I have been in a couple of years.  I’ve been more consistent with taking care of myself, going to the gym 1-3 times a week, doing more housework, and being more creative.  All this productivity has helped me feel a lot better than I was feeling before.

I know not every day will be perfect, but I’m hoping I can keep this up because I strongly disliked how it was before.

For those in similar situations, I wish you the best of luck in finding what will work for you to start battling depression and anxiety.

– Therell