or: A productivity experiment

I’ve been conducting an experiment. 

For the past week of our lockdown, I’ve been making a bit more of an effort with the clothes I chose to wear – less of the baggy slogan t-shirts and plain shorts and more of the tailored shirts, tucked in plain (yet still coloured) t-shirts, skirts and form fitting trousers.

I’ve never been an athletic wear person outside of doing exercise so there wasn’t that change to make. Athleisure wear is not for me. I’m either athleticing or I’m leisuring (the language purists will love these new words! Funny that I’m reading a book on grammar at the moment that talks about what I’ve just done too). I’m not simultaneously doing both though I do find exercise a great leisure activity, leisure for me is more along the lines of something that I can do either on a couch or a bed and not done in sportswear since that should be sweaty by the time I’d make my way to either leisure location.

Leisure activities outside the home would require different clothing eg tracksuit pants is not something I would wear to the movies however I’d quite happily watch Netflix at home wearing them (and obviously a top too since it can get a little cool here).

Anyway, with this clothing experiement, I’ve also been wearing my favourite perfumes and being a little neater with my hair. That can be a challenge since curly hair is naturally a little messy though I’ve found that what I see as messy hair is often not seen that way by others so I’ve taken that view for the purpose of the experiment.

This experiment has come about as I was a bit tired of wearing the same kinds of loose fitting clothing everyday. It is practical when it’s hot and it’s getting a little cooler now so I can comfortably wear more fitted clothing without feeling like I’m creating a swimming pool of sweat within 20 minutes of putting it on (HK would be in 2 minutes). I had realised I was feeling a little slovenly and put this down partly due to the clothes I was wearing.

I wasn’t as productive as I was at the start of the lockdown and was feeling a bit slack.

I watched a few YouTube style videos. Interesting. Who knew there were so many ways to wear white shirts? They had some tips on how to wear your existing clothing differently and some mix and match suggestions too. It’s easy to be in a rut and that’s where I found myself so these videos were great for inspiration and motivation.

I then started to tuck in some of my t-shirts again. I use to wear my tops like this many years ago so this made a big change for me. Sometimes I’d knot a shirt in the front. Time to bring out some patterned skirts. And so it continued.

I’ve even worn closed-toed shoes.

I felt refreshed and a little more focused. 

Ready for business – at home.

Going out – on my designated days to the supermarket.

Or possibly a neater version of leisure on the couch (it is still a lockdown after all).

I’m yet to wear my white tailored shirt.

Thanks to Triumph for the title to this post.