The future depends on what you do today

Monday 11^th January 2021

‘The future depends on what you do today’.  ( Mahatma Gandhi)

I wonder what you have done today. Probably not as much as you would have liked, because of the restrictions imposed on us through lockdown. And the current situation also makes thinking of the future difficult as many of our best laid plans including those we had for Christmas, didn’t quite work out.

Yet although we are living with a sense of uncertainty and there are things currently outside our control (which is always the case to a certain degree), the choices we make today will make a difference to how we manage during lockdown and the future into which we emerge when things improve.

For all of us at Wychwood, the return to working online away from friends and colleagues has been disappointing, especially after such a positive Michaelmas term. Once again we need to dig deep for the determination and discipline to work more independently, learn new skills and manage our time. All of these will enable us to work more effectively in the future and nothing of this will be wasted.

Of course without the usual structures it can be all too easy to procrastinate as I was doing before writing this week’s blog! And as the Shell spend their week in examinations, I know that some last week were struggling in the same way when it came to revision. Sometimes this is because we may be afraid of not being able to do it well enough. Voltaire once said that perfection was the enemy of the good, and perfectionism  may often stop an individual from achieving anything. We can also get to feel overwhelmed. Then the most important thing is simply to get started.

A simple but effective technique to break the deadlock of procrastination is the Pomodoro Technique, so named because it was devised by an Italian who used a tomato- shaped timer to help him. So choose one task, set a timer for 25 minutes and work without interruption until it rings. Take a five minute break and repeat up to four times after which you take a longer break. And it really works!

What we do today, will contribute to the shape of our future. So let’s get started and strive to do our best, not for ‘perfection’.

Mrs Crossley