Although this article came out in late December, whether you’re trying to be super productive or barely hanging on, I think this BulletproofMusician article on negative emotions and learning is work a read.

The Coronavirus (and all the closures and cancellations resulting from it) has given some people more free (or, at least, available) time to pursue a wide variety of activities.

These could be productive things (I’ve talked about some of my planned quarantine projects here) or unproductive things (I’m also doing some very important rewatching of The Office), but the bottom line is that many people have much more autonomy over how they spend their time.

It’s not 100% free time, of course. I do have some students who are taking lessons online, and I when I’m not teaching, my wife is. That means we have to juggle our 4-year old, who, of course, is not in preschool anymore.

However, when I look on my calendar and see nothing it’s incredibly tempting to try and schedule hours and hours of working things. A website project, and then this programming course, and then practice for 2-3 hours, etc. Then, if it doesn’t all get done, I feel overly stressed about not being “productive”.

One of my new projects is to recognize that not only can stress negatively effect things like concentration and focus, but an empty calendar doesn’t have to be filled.

Read the full article about how negative emotions can influence learning at BulletproofMusician.com.