some cool web comic about productivity and online school
We don't have the social (and other) rewards We don't get the joys of seeing people! People! nature! The songs on our commute! that stuffs fun. People are fun to see. They make you happy. Getting out of the house every day, getting sun, getting a set routine and appointments with friends and the serendipitous happy little things that happen as a result of being out and about and going to things and experiencing beautiful life with other people and the sheer amount of novelty outside of the confines of our room
We don't have the social pressures No one's expecting us anymore! No one is in class for us to engage in conversation with or even just the rewards of being around people (even the ones we don't talk to). The guy sitting next to you won't know you skipped :p The fear of the professor not seeing your face or your own desire for wanting your professor to see your face (for rec letters or whatever) is just not present.
We don't have the authority structure to really push us to do work Who's checking on us now? It really seems like no one. It seems like we're all alone here, only ourselves to be the sole motivator or judge of our actions. That's a terrible way to run any society.
It's so easy to just go back to bed (or be unproductive) when you're at school the friction to fall into laziness is so high: you gotta drive your ass home, tell everyone you're leaving, leave class, and then boop on your way and you gotta confront your mom that asks why you're home so early, etc.
Because of the safeguard mechanisms and frictions that normally keep you productive, we are pretty bound to being productive. It's almost hard to be unproductive. But now without them, it's pretty easy to be unproductive—through no fault of your own! That's just the result of the factors of your new severely limited environment.
Just go down your list! Whatever you're missing from normal school, rebuild (as best you can) the systems that kept you productive and rewarded before Quarantine Edition™
Enlist people to do work with you. You'll hate being that one guy that makes people get up at 9 AM to do work and you oversleep. It's hard to be lazy when everyone else in school and everyone you see is working hard on their missions just like you. At home, you probably don't see very many people at all! Build up this system for yourself. Make all your close peers doing work super visible to you, so it's just normal. So it's no longer a conscious decision. Make study pods with friends that will make you feel bad for not attending.