The quarantine and this year overall have been negative experiences for almost everybody. Fires, disasters, and now an infectious disease runs rampant worldwide. The cancellation of plans and closure of schools have also highly affected social interaction and the learning of students and Personally, I found it difficult to do anything productive or change my work habits to befit my new environment. But, through reflection and reconsideration, I was able to monopolize on the quarantine as an opportunity to improve myself and seize opportunities I may never have otherwise.

Rewinding back to the beginning of quarantine, without a proper schedule and being isolated at home, my days were filled to the brim with trivial activities, none of which attributed to any productivity or self improvement. I found myself living vicariously through watching live streamers on Twitch and YouTube videos. Although they were entertaining and sometimes therapeutic, I realized I wasn’t really getting anywhere in my own life by watching someone live their own. Other times, talking with friends or using social media began to bore me out, as there were only so many topics we could talk about before our DMs became dry deserts.

Now of course, a reasonable solution to this cycle of unproductivity would be to try new hobbies or allocate more time towards chipping away at what I’d want to accomplish in the future, right? But I realized that by nature, I was a heavy procrastinator. In person classes had kept me in check for many school years, since I was expected to finish all my assignments before each school day. On the other hand, online school, was very flexible and allowed students to work at their own pace. At my first glance, I thought this would be great for me. Having the opportunity to work at my own rate seemed like a dream come true, but I didn’t foresee how much it would affect my once stable work ethic. For days or weeks before summer rolled around, I would lay off my assignments for the next day, and the next day, and the next day, ultimately never completing some of them which led to dissatisfaction from my teachers, my parents, and myself.

Weeks had gone by since I was forced to adapt to this new environment. Initially, I struggled and got mad at myself again and again over the viscous cycle of unproductivity and amotivation I felt like I was encapsulated in. I didn’t look forward to the next day much every night during the quarantine and I especially did not have the courage to own up to my outstanding assignments. I slept late at night and woke up late in the afternoon, with no plans or no goals, aimlessly trekking through the weeks with no destination.

But, at some point in this chain, something changed. I felt like at the minimum, I had to fix my sleep schedule. So, I finished my homework early that day, set my alarm for 10:30 PM and made sure to separate myself from electronic screens for thirty minutes before tucking in the sheets. And as of result, that night was the best I had ever slept since the beginning of quarantine. The satisfaction of knowing I had to finish my assignments earlier to sleep earlier made me feel like I could turn my situation around. So slowly, I began to make a routine that focused on maximizing my sleep and putting my health first. Of course, it wasn’t easy at first, but as I got back into working out, playing the piano, reading, and many other hobbies I never even thought I would have the chance to learn, I realized that I could monopolize the quarantine as an opportunity to improve myself.

I had a new perspective on my once dire situation now, acknowledging that the slightest amount of effort can eventually snowball into something significant and life changing when kept consistent and that the value of a day is solely dependent on what I want to do with it. It led me to formulate two simple questions that I constantly asked myself on a regular basis:

“What do I want to do today?“

“How important is today?”

Additionally, an important factor that helped change my mindset was the sunset. Also responsible for converting me from a night owl to a morning bird, there was nothing more satisfying than having an hour or two to myself, while the rest of my family was asleep. The birds chirping and radiant sun rising acted as my ambient sound and natural light, forming a perfect environment for me to work in peace on any assignments or projects I wanted to work on that day. Since I learned to appreciate and value these sunrises so much, I consider each of them as an individual significant event that only happens once a year, since each day can be so different depending on what you use its time for. They became the focal point of my fake flyers, as I hope they can help others understand every days’ significance.