X

Ox

 

Have an idea for a story?
M opinions@theotherpress.ca

¢ The fight against fake activism
e Jackpot! You ‘win?’
¢ Why | prefer living alone

..and more

Downtime leads to better productivity

» Take a break, it'll be better for you in the long run

Jade Hosick
(CUP) The Cord

 

Wwe leaving for university, my
parents stressed to me that I needed
to prioritize schoolwork. While I agree
that this is good advice, I would also advise
every student entering post-secondary to
prioritize downtime where they focus on
self-care.

In high school, I found that I always
had enough time to work on projects
while still having a part time job and doing
extracurriculars, while simultaneously
spending time with my friends and having
time to recharge my battery, so to say. But
after you leave high school, making time
for yourself becomes even more difficult.
Something that took a while to learn
was that taking breaks from studying or
partying is better for your productivity.

In my first year and half of second
year, I really waited until it was almost too
late to start my assignments, and while I
got them done and did decent on them—
my mental health really took a fall.

Often, you can hear students talking
about powering through their work, but we
are not machines and we do not have the
ability to continue doing tasks for extended
periods of time. A burn out is defined
as ruining one’s health or becoming

L

 

completely exhausted through overwork.
You lose the joy in things you once had
found interesting.

In the second half of my second year, I
really started to prioritize starting my work
earlier and took breaks in between. I know,
breaks are something that a lot of people
really do not want to worry about, making
schoolwork a “night before” kind of issue,
and it really does affect your overall mental
state.

A study conducted at Boston

Jackpot! You ‘win?’

» Winning big in the lottery can be a disaster

 

EG Manilag
Staff Writer

 

don’t mean to rain on someone else’s

parade, but this must be said. Winning
the megabucks can mega-backfire. You
might be asking “how?” But first, let me
tell you that winning the lottery is not a
curse. It just so happens that, many lottery
winners end up in bad situations after
winning lots of money. There are so many
reasons why lots of money could actually
be life ruining.

Your relationships could be ruined.

Winning so much money at once can lead

toa series of family conflicts
and peer pressure to give
your “pals” a cut of your
winnings.

“Tt became necessary
to be careful about who I
make friends with because
some people can be cruel
and have alternative motives
for befriending you. Some
feel that just because you
have money, you owe them
money,’ said Sandra Hayes,
one of the 12 people at
her work in Missouri who
split a $224 million dollar
Powerball jackpot. Damn
right! It’s like saying, if I can’t have it, you
have to share. For another example, couple
Adrian and Gillian Bayford won £148
million in 2012 but split up 15 months later,
saying the pressure of their win was part of
the reason, Mirror Online news reported.

Winning a huge lottery can be
overwhelming, making your sense of
responsibility sink down the drain. Like
2002 US lottery winner, Jack Whittaker
garnered a whopping $315 million dollar
Powerball jackpot.

“Since I won the lottery, I think there
is no control for greed,” he said. “I think

Consulting Group (BCG) found that
companies that force their employees

to take breaks or vacations increased
productivity. If you sit in front of a laptop
all day, you become less focused and get
less work completed.

An easy way to do that is as soon as
you are assigned a project, start it. If you
have a week (syllabus week, for example)
where you do not have much work to do
and you are able to start a project, start it.
Or, if a project can be completed little by

if you have something, there's always
someone else that wants it. I wish I'd torn
that ticket up.”

A lot has happened in his life: he
was robbed, his house was set on fire,
and his granddaughter and her boyfriend
died from drug overdoses—something
he attributes to his winning. His life was
ruined by his lottery win. Even though us
Canadians aren't taxed on our lottery wins
we can still be taxed in other more personal
ways.

Strangers will try to milk you for all
youre worth. They want a piece of your
pie regardless of how distant they are in
relation to you. They'll use deceptive tactics
like pranks, scams, and bogus lawsuits. For
instance, Global News BC reported that a
BC man who won a million dollars in the
lottery in 2018 was sued by his former co-
workers for not sharing the pot. They claim
that they each pitched in $5 for the lottery
ticket, so they were entitled to a cut. It is
very depressing—instead of other people
congratulating you, they get jealous and
essentially haunt you for their share.

Another example is teen Fortnite
world champion Kyle “Bugha’” Giersdorf.
Through effort, blood, sweat, and tears,
Kyle found his way to winning the $3
million dollar grand prize in Fortnite

little after each class, take some time after
the class to work on it, that way you do not
stress about it.

I'm sitting here and telling you how
to do your work even though I am still
trying to get better at doing my work with
downtime in between. I am not perfect.

I still leave assignments until the last
minute because I must go to work, because
I needed to finish an article, or because I
just got lazy. But, if you start to prioritize
breaks, you start to schedule your time and
that really is going to help you down the
road.

With this downtime that you now
have, you should be focusing on taking care
of yourself—maybe use the downtime to
go to sleep earlier and get a full night’s rest.
Sleeping is one of the best things that you
can do in downtime, in my opinion.

I look at sleeping like recharging a
battery: Getting a full night’s sleep means
that you have a 100 percent battery, but if
you only sleep for four hours then you only
have roughly 50 percent battery—so you
have less energy and less ability to focus on
your tasks.

Also try to take a break from your
phone, or really any form of technology.
It’s difficult but having an hour where you
aren't connected to everything is also very
good for your mental health.

world cup solo competition. Although
it’s nota lottery win, he still got into a
serious dilemma. A couple of weeks after
his victory, his house was “swatted”—a
dangerous prank where someone calls gu
to tell them that a serious violent crime is
happening at a streamer’s house.

It was avery distressing situation for
Kyle and his family. Luckily, according to
Kyle from his Twitch livestream, one of
the officers lived in his neighborhood and
immediately recognized Kyle, so situation
was diffused. Nevertheless, this perilous
prank could have gone terribly south
as SWAT teams have no way of telling
whether the call that they're responding to
is a joke. Despite Kyle winning the money
through a competition instead of the
lottery, he was still victimized.

Money is a means, not an end. It
shouldn't be recognized as the ultimate
goal in life. In my opinion, instead of
waiting for the apple to fall from the tree,
or for lightning to hit you, why not invest—
or just save your money? You don’t have to
be financially savvy to know that playing
the lottery can make you lose money, you
just have to know the most basic principle
of wealth-building—‘“spend less than you
make.”