For the third week running, I woke up at Wednesday at 10:30 AM, precisely 90 minutes late for college. With 2 lectures already missed (unintentionally, I may add), I forced myself to get out of bed in order to make it to the rest of them in time. After applying the relevant mathematical theorems and lemmas into the Equation of Attendance by factoring the constant of laziness and the proportionality of boredom of lectures, I decided to finally go…… back to bed.

My Whiteboard, on the wall to the left of my bed, stared back at me with expectation and persuasion. Completely adorned with my calligraphic efforts urging me to read a certain number of books, complete certain online courses, pick up on my successfully unsuccessful attempts to learn a language, acknowledge that an assignment submission is looming around the corner and so much more was awaiting my actions sincerely. A pang of guilt, okay a surge, alright a wave, damn it, a tsunami of guilt hit me suddenly. I silently rebuked my misplaced overenthusiasm of even imagining to wind up this seemingly infinite list. And on the right corner, was an acronym, hidden from view. It said NYR. New Year’s Resolutions. Those poor, unfortunate souls. I was so embarrassed about admitting to keeping them that I had denounced them to this unworthy spot, away from my sight. I couldn’t even bring myself to face them. RIP NYR 2017.

Lost among the sea of Whatsapp messages that accumulated overnight, thinking of sassy comebacks, polite responses and witty barbs, I lost another half hour or so. Convinced that I couldn’t possibly make it to college now, at any rate, I set to plan my day, raging with mild enthusiasm. I immediately rejected the idea of exercising because what’s a strong core compared to a flab of fat that you complain about while stuffing a mouthful of chips. Ah, the good life. The online course option went out the Window (pun intended) because why would I want to study when studying was what I intended to avoid in college. Can’t beat logic. Funnily enough, my entire To-Do list fell apart like Indian aspirants’ dreams to study in the US when Trump got elected. And ironically, with a whole bunch of responsibilities calling out to me, I felt I had nothing to do.

The battle between intent and indulgence is one that we all fall prey to. Intent is like a wise mentor. It will sprout from time to time, leave gentle reminders, expect your maturity to take cognizance and will eventually leave you to your fate if neglected for too long. Indulgence, though, is a toddler on a sugar rush. Unbelievably excitable, extremely short sighted and with a minuscule attention span, it hops along from one vice to another, keeping productivity at bay. It doesn’t take a psychologist to comprehend what allures our dopamine-fuelled centres more. The tricky thing is, your brain (and you too, presumably) know that the satisfaction of being productive the entire day and the feeling that you earned you sleep is unparalleled. Those days, however, tend to be sporadic. And when you are slogging to read another chapter or lose another kilo or to study another hour, it’s no wonder that the blow indulgence strikes is fatal to your efficiency.

How can we then, go about enhancing our productivity? God knows there are hundreds and hundreds of websites, channels and videos, all claiming to turn you into someone who even poops in a time efficient manner. There are tips handed out on different platforms that are supposed to teach you how to write an email as you cook and talk to your parents simultaneously. I’ve personally yet to come across a better piece of advice than ‘Burn that phone down and go do your job’. Totally works. But on a serious note, why is it such a global issue that no matter where we are in our lives, we never feel the 86400 seconds we get are enough? I read an interesting perspective on the issue here.

Thorin says in the article, “I strive to accomplish as much as I can every day because I’m terrified that people will look at my life and say that I’m not doing anything with it. I overwhelm myself with projects so that when someone asks me what I’m doing, I can proudly list off several projects…….We’re told time and time again that certain habits benefit productivity. Oh, boredom’s great for productivity? Better schedule some time to get bored. Exercise helps too? Schedule that for the middle of the day. What about sleep? Yes? Great! Oh, and wake up early every day? Fine! Can I read faster? No? I’ll do it anyway!”

We are essentially driving ourselves into a forced state of mind where a moment of rest means a moment wasted. I think ever since the Industrial Revolution came into being, this mentality started to be driven into the mind of the masses. You need to be productive every waking second of the day. Why? This opens up a Pandora Box of questions. One that very few people have legitimate answers to.

Coming back to myself and the Wednesday I was having, I put aside whatever I was expected to do on the back burner. I had a day or at least a couple of hours to myself. I found myself in this situation where I had no option but to let spontaneity take rein of my time, with indulgence on the co-passenger seat. I took out a novel that I had intended to read but couldn’t due to my time consuming yet not so fruitful schedule. With my phone on silent and my laptop shut, I let my eyes saccade over the pages as I drifted into the world of words. Maybe I would regret this day sometime later in my life, maybe this time well spent was time utterly wasted, and maybe I needed to exert more self-control. Maybe I could raise another hundred maybe-ies. But I let it slide. Between intent and indulgence, my intent to indulge had come up victorious. I sincerely look forward to days in my life when I would feel like the most productive man in the world. Today, however, was not that day.