Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Roblox
Written by Keira Mooar
Once again, I find myself in Jaho with an overpriced pumpkin spice latte in hand and my laptop open on my Google Calendar. This time, I sit down across from my friend and it’s time to start my reading for Love and Eroticism. I laugh with my friend about the amount of hours I spent on Roblox last night, then I realize that I should probably start the first draft for this instead.
For my first blog, I’m going to focus on the motivation to focus. To me, “motivation to focus” is how you get into a productive state, or lock in. In high school, me and my Pomodoro Timer were best friends. I struggle to get myself to do things I don’t want to do, especially school work. I was often procrastinating until the morning of my freshman year classes. It wasn’t until my sophomore or junior year that I started getting ahead of work during lunch so I had more time for online classes and extracurriculars.
Now I am taking classes I enjoy, which has led me to abandoning the Pomodoro Timer. If you don’t know, it’s a study method where you spend 20 minutes working, then you get a 5 minute break, and you repeat until the task is done. I used to swear by it, but I just don’t have a use for it anymore. Doing homework used to feel like I was goading myself into doing something I didn’t want to do.
I have other methods now. It’s Thursday and this is probably my fifth latte this week, if you count the ones I make with Trader Joe’s Oat Milk Cinnamon Bun Creamer and Tim Hortons K-Cups. The pumpkin spice latte is iconic to me. Coffee signals to my brain, “ I need to focus now” more than anything else I’ve tried. I’ve found it’s a great motivator to get me off campus to do my work.
Another motivation hack I’ve discovered recently is going anywhere but your bed to do your homework, which I think most people have discovered by now, but it’s new to me. During high school, I did a lot of homework and even online classes from my bed. But now I find it difficult to separate the space where I play Roblox and sleep from the space where I work. Shocker.
Anyway, if you’re having a block or feeling unmotivated I would definitely recommend going anywhere different to switch it up, even your floor kitchen. I swear by this one table in my floor kitchen, there’s something about the lighting, the angle, and the view that is absolutely perfect and I never fail to focus.
One blow to my motivation to focus has been re-downloading Roblox on my computer. I have been playing Smoothie Factory Tycoon constantly. And so obsessively that after I took a melatonin gummy last night, I dreamed I was playing Smoothie Factory Tycoon. I fell asleep to The Secret Lives Of Morning Wives, rolled over, turned on rain sounds, and I still dreamt of Roblox.
I get distracted by video games, especially the mundane and repetitive ones that keep me as far away from the stuff I need to do as possible. It’s weird to be so distracted by a stupid video game because I actually like doing my homework now.
Recently, I tried using the Pomodoro Timer again as a way to keep myself on task while finishing a reflection for my college writing class and editing art pieces. I tried to spend 20 minutes editing and then 5 minutes fixing my reflection. But I just ignored the timer and finished all the editing and then the reflection. So it’s just not working for me right now.
I’ll sit down in Jaho, like today for instance, and open my book to realize I probably have 10 other things I need to do instead because they’re due sooner. So then I’m signing a ring light out from the EDC, organizing for a take-home quiz, and writing this blog. All things I want to do, just not the tasks I started with. So from now on, I’m going to try making to-do lists before I set off for Jaho. I’ll tell you how that goes.
Anyway, my pumpkin spice latte is finished. I’m going to delete Roblox and get back to work.