VYSHNAVI: During the pandemic, I really had some trouble or struggle. It took me a while to accept that things are not the same. And it took me over a month to come to terms with the reality.

But I think once I’ve understood that or accepted the reality, then that definitely helped improve my productivity. I think the reason my productivity increased after accepting the reality was because I didn’t have too many expectations.

I probably did not spend as much time worrying about whether I will accomplish something in time or whether I will complete a task, and instead I focused on, OK, I’m just going to do what I can. Maybe it could just be one or two tasks or two or three. That’s fine. I don’t have to do a lot.

But I’m going to set aside two or three, and as long as I complete those in a day, I think that’s good. And that way, I didn’t really spend time pondering about, oh my God, what would happen if I didn’t complete this, why am I not doing this?

I didn’t really have any time to waste on such negative thoughts or such demotivating thoughts. It was more just being positive, staying positive, doing whatever you can, however small it is, but just doing it and moving forward.

So that definitely helped me speed things up. And this, of course, did not happen in a matter of one or two days. It took a few weeks, a month or two, and at that point, I was kind of comfortable working in a new normal. So I guess like all of these factors helped boost my productivity.