Prioritizing

Image via WikipediaHow does that work?

I have stuff that I have to do and stuff that I want to do and a very finite ability to do these things.  As in, probably less ability/energy/capacity than "normal" people.  And unpredictable capacities - I can't always predict if I'll have a migraine on a given day or be particularly tired and brain foggy or arthritic or whatever.

Unpredictability and finite capacity are two of the major things that make holding a "normal" daily set-schedule job difficult to impossible.

Unfortunately, self-motivation and organization to work on things at home is also a challenge for me.

I try to do a lot of the house cleaning and dishes.  Tom manages doing laundry and meals and obtaining stuff for meals.

Then there is reading for fun and for research and self-improvement.

Then there is crafty stuff for fun.

And crafty stuff that I'd like to eventually turn into a business. 

And writing, here and other places.

And somewhere in there I need enough energy to spend quality time with my husband and socialize in some way here and there and basic self-care like showering.  Plus I usually have at least 1 medical appointment every week, often 2 or 3.  And I need to exercise and meditate regularly (preferably every day) for my health.

But I never know when to start and what to start.  And I have a huge problem with feeling guilty for doing "fun" stuff.  There is a little voice in my head that says "if you are well enough to do x, you should be well enough to have a full-time 9-5 job, you awful malingering lazy-bones."  I'm working on telling that voice what to go do with itself, but it's hard.  And so I frequently find that I default to mindless internet surfing and find the day gone and very little accomplished either of the fun or the work. 

There is also the little voice that says "you're wasting stuff!" when I start a project or am trying to start one.  

In addition, I often find myself obsessively finding tutorials or books or how-tos about a given craft or activity and spend so much time collecting the stuff and wind up so overwhelmed with all of it that I do nothing.  Sort of the equivalent of spending so much time gathering sources for a paper that you don't actually get to the writing of the paper (until 2 days before it's due, at which point you stop sleeping and write non-stop until 5am the day it's due).


How do you figure it out?  What tricks do you have for self-motivating?  Or convincing yourself that "waste" is a part of learning?  How do you prioritize the must be done/want to do?  And how to do you manage all that with unpredictable ability from day to day?

Attempts at time management

As I've mentioned before, I want and plan to eventually open an Etsy shop and see if I can get it going.  Unfortunately, time management is pretty craptastic when you're not only chronically ill, but also unpredictable from day to day.  As in, I have no idea how I will feel from day to day, whether I will get to sleep at a decent time and sleep well or whether I'll be awake until 4AM or will wake up with my brain refusing to function or in so much pain I don't want to do anything but cuddle with the heating pad and whichever of my boys (Tom or Oreo) is convenient at the time.

It's also really, really hard to get out of the mindset of "I'm sick, I should rest."  This might sound contradictory, as I frequently complain that I've overdone it, but the two do sort of go hand in hand.  It's challenging to find a happy medium when the goal posts move all the damn time.  It's also sort of hardwired into people and animals to behave in certain ways when they're sick - to slow down, sleep more, become more sedentary, etc.  Unfortunately, I can't really do that and function.   But it's hard not to.  And it's been very hard for me to set a schedule for myself because I don't know how I'll feel or what I'm really capable of and because it's hard to set a sort of floating schedule.  At some point, I'm going to have to just go ahead and start doing stuff at 1 AM if that seems like the best time for me on that day.

All that said - I've taken the plunge.  I'm experimenting with Remember the Milk as of last night.  I have it set up (I hope) to give me recurring reminders for basic household tasks (like dishes or dusting, etc.).  I also have set up dates by which I'd like to do certain things like actually open the Etsy shop and get things made in preparation for various upcoming holidays.  I'm hoping this is an achievable goal.  I'm also hoping I won't be really upset if I don't manage it.  :P  Anyway, the idea is that I'll look at my to do list with the dates and be able to say, "okay, I feel up to doing X today and it needs doing in the next 3 days, so I'll get started."  I'm also going to have to work on chopping up tasks into smaller bits.  I can't sit in a regular chair or stand up and bend over things for longer than about 15 minutes before I'm in agony. So, until I find a better chair or some other solution, I'm going to have to set a timer.

I also need to quit spending as much time as I do online.  That will be a hard one.  Since I don't go out much and don't really like phones the internet is where I manage most of my human (mostly, I think) interaction.

Anyway, that's the goal for the next few weeks  - to try this stuff out and see how it works.  Wish me luck!