After you’ve gone to work, arrived back home, tackled chores and eaten dinner, you might be too drained to do anything but bed rot or doom scroll.
One potential solution to this burnout, says Google executive productivity advisor Laura Mae Martin: assign yourself some homework. You may have seen something similar on TikTok — people giving themselves a “personal curriculum” or academia-inspired syllabus to help themselves learn a new language, complete an art project or read a series of old books in their free time after work.
The idea that adding more tasks to your schedule could make you feel less drained may sound counterintuitive. And if you’re far removed from school, assigning yourself homework may not sound attractive. But “anyone can benefit from something that pushes their productivity boundaries a bit and gets them to the value of learning and accomplishing things they’ve been wanting to master,” says Martin.
DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to using AI to communicate better
Humans lean on structure and deadlines for motivation to get things done, Martin says. “The key is to make it fun and engaging for your brain,” she says — like listening to a podcast on a topic you wouldn’t read a book about, or using games and flashcards to study instead of reading a long document over and over.
