I think that some people have a mistaken belief that the only thing standing in the way of them being productive is the amount of free time they have. Then suddenly they have all the time they could ever want and they realise it's not that simple.

Yeah, it's easy to be productive at work when you have a load of external motivations imposed on you. But working hard on personal projects during your free time requires intrinsic motivation. You have to build up a different sense of discipline and new working habits. Often it's not going to be fun, even if its something you love. And all the time your brain is trying to convince you just to chill with a video game or TV show. It's hard. oyster also makes a good point about productivity being different for each person. If you don't define those expectations for yourself, you're going to be lost from the start.

To top it all off, we're all feeling extra anxiety and stress from the current situation. That's been enough to stymie people who have already built up that discipline. So having a load of free time due to being quarantined is not some golden ticket to productivity.