All throughout my recent years, I’ve told others, and myself, that I’m busy. Extremely busy. Busier than the busiest and buzziest bee. I’m always writing a script or five, working on a YouTube video, missing a work deadline, agreeing to commitments I can’t keep, helping to organise things, meeting with friends, all at the same time – and then some more stuff on top of that. Despite this, I spend an awful lot of time not doing any of the things I’m busy because of, and then complaining at myself for not doing them and making myself more busy. Which has led me to the theory that I am, in fact, not at all busy: I just have extraordinarily bad time management, and I am about as busy as everybody else.
This has reached a peak in 2017, where I did what I don’t tend to do: say no to things. Well, that’s slightly wrong. I said yes to things, and then backtracked. I agreed to do a little promotional film for my college’s English Department, before backing down. I said I’d be the guide for an updated virtual tour of my college, but that fizzled out. I spent six months working on a script for a film which was supposed to shoot over July, before pulling the plug on it in late June because I couldn’t figure out how to write the script (which came after numerous failed attempts at planning other films). Against a backdrop of pressured A-Levels – which I think I did well in – the rest of my life this year has been a weak splat.
My last commitment was to my uncle’s wedding yesterday. It was lovely. A beautiful, sun-drenched day, both coming from the sun and from the warmth of his marriage. I was the Best Man, which naturally requires a speech. I did it. I didn’t think it went well, but apparently my judgement was incorrect. I also made him a LEGO stop-motion film, as he’s massively into LEGO – thank God he liked it, because it took me fucking ages. I’d planned a film for a long time, and for an equally long time it looked like it wasn’t going to happen, due to a mixture of my own incompetence and scheduling issues with his friends and family. But I couldn’t give up on it. Not after I’d already given up on everything else. I saw it through, both for his sake and mine. Do give it a watch!
This is, partially liberating. I can finish the 3 shows I’ve been watching for aeons (Luke Cage, some Nazi documentaries, and Five Came Back). I can start the shows I want to start (Broadchurch, Humans Series 2, The Man in the High Castle and Fresh Meat). I can finish the books I’m reading (a biography of Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, Alastair Campbell’s diaries from 1994-1997, and an audiobook of Obama’s The Audacity of Hope). I can make the YouTube video I want to make (to mark my 3-year anniversary of making YouTube videos). I can write the feature-length script I want to write (that’s a secret!). I can watch all the movies I want to watch (my Netflix watch list is very long). I can just be me. I can relax.
And yet, I am also fearful of it. Being busy and stressed keeps me on my toes. Like I said, I have bad time management, and with nothing to do I end up doing, well, nothing. I just sit and scroll through my phone, getting up at 14:00 and wasting at least 6 valuable hours of the day. I know that I am in control of my life and I have to change things myself, but it’s difficult to break out of such an established mindset.
I have no further point. I just needed to write a blog post. Now, I’m gonna go sit and figure out what to do.
Jasper Cresdee-Hyde 