Reflecting on Productivity into the New Year

As I sit in my childhood room for the first time since August, having just completed my third semester at Oberlin, I’ve been reflecting on my past four months away from home. I find myself labeling stretches of time by the music I’ve learned and worked on, to evaluate how productive my semester was. For example, I learned this piece in X weeks in September, which was pretty impressive, but in November, I had X lessons on another piece before I finally performed it in studio class, which is an embarrassingly long amount of time. While it’s easy for me to obsess about analyzing progress, it helps to take a step back and realize I shouldn’t always measure productivity this strictly.

Defining productivity is something I’ve grappled with throughout my time at Oberlin. As a violin performance major, I often spend consecutive stretches of hours in the Conservatory of Music without leaving. After arriving at Robertson Hall for morning practice, attending my 11 am class, eating lunch in Skybar, heading to another rehearsal after this class and this coaching and then going for a study session in the Conservatory Library with a friend right before I go back to Robertson for another practice session, before I know it, it’s 9 pm and I’ve forgotten what the outside world looks like. In my freshman year, I began associating the time I’d return to my room for the day with my general productivity levels. If I got back to my room at 7 pm, you might as well have said that I wasted the day away. If I even entertained the idea of taking a midday nap? Forget it. Write LAZY all over the back of my shirt.

This semester was my first where some of my days started with classes after 10 am, which I was very grateful for as a non morning-class person. This was especially true on Thursdays, where my days began with studio class at 12:30 pm, followed by my 3 pm English class. While I strived to get out of bed early on these days to hit the practice room for as many hours as possible before my first class, sometimes it just… didn’t happen. I’d lie in bed while my roommates, fellow music majors with early classes, were long gone. (I live in a quad: a room with 2 doubles connected by a living room area.) We quickly coined the term ‘freeloading’ to refer to this very concept among ourselves. If one of us slept in or returned to our dorm, South Hall, for a break while the rest of us were out, we’d joke that we freeloaded the day away. Which is a little ironic because it implies that we’re mooching off of the resources of someone else… but we’re actually just in the comfort of our own rooms!

In attaching a closely related but not exact concept to ‘freeloading,’ my roommates and I are of course only joking. But I realized that it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that going back to your dorm room throughout the day is unproductive, when it can actually be super rejuvenating! It’s the one place on campus that’s entitled to only you (and your roommate, of course). I found that going back to my room to take a breather, meditate about the rest of my day, or to just finish up an assignment in bed before returning to the Conservatory for other commitments was very beneficial for me. Also, if I got an early start with practicing and found myself done with my schedule at 7 pm, I took it as an opportunity to return to South and relax for the night, instead of feeling guilty about not going back to Robertson to practice. If I’m tired after having already efficiently practiced for several hours throughout the day on top of completing everything else on my plate, it would most likely end up as mindless over-practicing anyway… which brings me into my next topic.

Writing about how I didn’t take the universal, tried-and-true advice that college students need 7-9 hours of sleep seriously until I realized, after multiple semesters, that my less-than-ideal amounts of sleep in the name of productivity were actually just making me less productive and more miserable would be very on-brand and stereotypical for a college student. On-brand and stereotypical I am! Out of an unfortunate habit, I kicked off the semester spending most of my nights locked up in a practice room, regardless of how much I practiced throughout the day. I’d laser focus on mere measures of music for hours, meaning that I needed to spend ungodly amounts of time getting through all of my repertoire. I would get back to my room late at night and set my alarm for 7 am (well before any of my classes started) to start practicing early and restart the loop.

Even though I experienced the downfalls of this regimen, feeling exhausted all day and slowly blinking at my music stand in practice rooms trying to stay awake, I wasn’t able to fix the problem until I addressed its root cause: I had untreated ADHD which was affecting many aspects of my college life. After years of being pretty sure about it but not taking action, I realized that to reach my full potential as a musician and a student, I should get the help that I needed and deserved. Receiving an ADHD diagnosis and treatment helped me to understand myself more authentically. For example, insufficient sleep worsens symptoms! Fatigue made it more likely for me to fall into unproductive hyper-focus, practicing one or two measures of music… causing me to overcompensate by excessively over-practicing to get through all of my repertoire… making me miss out on sleep, reinforcing a detrimental cycle.

Prioritizing sleep and balancing efficient productivity without overworking myself benefitted me in areas outside of practicing too. I performed better academically, and I also had more downtime to spend alone or with friends. I could have my cake and eat it too: I could cross my daily to-do list off and also have time to relax. And I didn’t have to feel guilty about it!

As I reminisce on all the amazing memories I made with my friends this semester, I discovered that bonding didn’t just take place over meals and planned hangouts. As someone whose friend circle mostly includes other Conservatory students, I shared so many laughs with my friends in Robertson on practice breaks, or while teaming up to do Aural Skills assignments together. Finding community and inspiration from my friends, even in ‘working mode,’ helped energize me during long days of work.

This semester, I learned that productivity is not linear, which is okay! I learned that productivity isn’t measured in terms of quantity, and doesn’t always look like passionately hacking away at something in isolation. I learned that rest is important, and prioritizing it is productive. Going into the next semester and the new year, I aim to uphold these newfound values of mine by celebrating my productivity in all of its manifestations.