02: User Interview
Q. Explain me a little about your topic?
Yeah absolutely! So I think what I wrote as a general interest was mental health, mediation and time management are all things that I’ve been thinking about and I on a personal level, I am curious about is just like giving the isolation that we have kind of been living in and just the demands of. I think a high-stress academic environment and that it has seemingly become more demanding with remote classes and the amount of work er are engaging with.
I’ve been particularly interested in just like understanding how to like better engaged mentally and emotionally in terms of like my being mindful of like the time that I do have free to I think like meditate or just engage in like practices that are probably better for my mental health and then additionally it’s just the sheer amount of work in the fact that we don’t have these division of spaces managing time in kind of compartmentaizing time becomes very difficult.
Like it’s very easy when I’m like sitting at my desk working for class, you know that before I know it like 12 hours passes and I haven’t left my desk.
Q. These three are totally different topics like time management is totally different than you know, you mentioned mental health and meditation or mindfulness. what is you’re more inclined towards/to pursue?
I think that the interconnection maybe does revolve around time management right and and perhaps like mental health effects or like being more mindful of time does come from time management perhaps and so that’s like one aspect.
And then on the other side of that may be another problem with you know, that I can see how it would help time management is finding tools to be more Mindful and maybe more like clear-headed about and taking steps away from my computer like something that gets me away from working might make me more like clear understanding how to manage my time.
And so I think those are two possible approaches, but I definitely see how one and vice versa.
Q. That’s an interesting aspect to look upon. Have you thought of any solution or tried any ways to cope up with this time management issue of yours?
No, I don’t have a solution. I don’t think though.
I mean when I think about tools that have worked for me. I mean generally resides around some piece of like software. It usually like on my phone or on the computer. and I guess additionally I should say that like I haven’t really tried many things that are outside of my computer. And so I don;t know of any other solutions other than apps. Yeah, a lot of like mindfulness apps that exist. Like I never get a good enough Taste of like what it can offer. So like I just like don’t really want to buy into their subscription service.
Q. Any positive or negative experience from using apps or for specific about time management?
Maybe not. I’ve always been like centered around tasks instead of like time. And so, I think what I’ve been faced with is like so having a little bit of like a development background task management is like something that I’m like really accustomed to in terms of agile workflows and things like that.
I think what different now is that I don’t have that. Act like end of work day and so it just never ends. You just don’t know when to stop!
Q. What’s the hardest or most frustrating thing about that is?
I think the hardest thing is like when you’ve been in classes all day and jump into homework and then you realize like you haven’t left your desk at all and it’s nighttime and that there’s none of your day lasts essentially and it’s like do I stay up and then regret it in the morning or do I just like go to sleep now and not have any semblance of like a light outside is like standing in front of my computer.
Q. What kind of audience your are targeting for this project?
Oh man, If I’m stepping outside of like my own personal problems, like absolutely like I think that it is something that on a personal level I would like to explore with like professionals and Just because like I think it’s like a prevalent problem that exists.
Maybe isn’t unique to this time but as accentuated by this time. Like I think that these aspects of like the culture surrounding like I don’t know working with technology involves a lot of long hours. But like now that we don’t have these kind of forced separations like it’s more evident and maybe more like prevalent even and stuff.
I just related, you know that previous question as well as like what I think about few friends that I have in the city. They all see busier than they were before all of this and I think there was this ability to step away and to have a social life and to do all these things and so that is going something that Isn’t just personal I guess right like this is something that could be wider with like just people working in this environment.
Q. Is there any things you want to add before we conclude?
I think I’m trying to solve and I don’t fully know the answer but you know things that I think about are like it has to be something more than a reminder to like get outside and simultaneously like within I think institutions that like some sort of like Acknowledgement that this is like an issue and then like thinking about it on like a broader scale, you know.
Beyond like the personal problem I think that you could say that like it could lead to like a motivation problem or a moral problem or even just like stress and you know, if you link all of those things together like it becomes like a productivity problem as well. If we are just constantly in this kind of zombie state in front of the screen like we aren’t going to like be as effective as we are as human beings, you know interacting with one another and solving problems.
Q. If you had a magic wand, what would you change?
So I think I would change like the structure of the workload and it’s not so much about like the amount of work that we have but I think how things are structured with us in front of a screen like I would have restructure breaks to be more restful. Like I don’t know about you but in the like three minute breaks that were given sometimes or that we take it’s just like enough to scarf down some food and then till like maybe like take my dog outside and that’s about it and like. Yeah, all of a sudden like these pieces are lost and I know our days aren’t sure.
Additionally, we probably have more time actually because we aren’t commuting anymore, doesn’t feel that way.
And so like I think I’m like, how do you create tools or how do you create something that makes you feel that time has been added to your schedule not taken away and I very much feel that you know, like I feel like I have less time oldest.
