time for a reset

doing again what i’ve done before

This week began like most others, with nothing exceptional. I had realised that I wasn’t existing in a mode that made me happy or was contributing towards being successful, so I pulled out some old tools and techniques to try to get myself better aligned with my goals.

I went back to a morning pages journaling routine and gave myself permission to do it at any time of the day that was convenient to me. With small children, unless I get up at 5 in the morning, I do not have the luxury of sitting down first thing to write before I do anything else. Often, my morning starts either by being called into another room or by having one or two little boys standing over my bed. From that point, I don’t stop working until I sit at my desk to start performing my day job. So my morning pages are sometimes written in the morning (i.e. before noon), and on other days they’re not. Regardless, I have been making time to put my thoughts into order and on paper, and this has been an improvement.

Habits for neurotypical people are not what habits are for neurodivergent people. An NT person can walk into the bathroom and not think about any of the things they have to do to complete their bathroom routine. They walk in, daydream for however long, and then walk out having successfully groomed themselves without having to make any decisions or even be remotely present in the moment. That sounds like such a luxury to me. ND people (on the whole, and in particular those of us with executive dysfunction) have to consider and make decisions about everything we do as a ‘routine habit’. By the time I have left the bathroom, I have talked myself through how to brush my teeth and my hair, wash any part of me that I have the energy to wash (which is hopefully all of me) and do any other thing I may need to do. It is exhausting and off-putting, so finding a way to get some dopamine involved makes it far more likely to be accomplished. A habit tracker means I get to colour in a box when I’ve brushed my teeth, taken my vitamins, and performed any task that requires intrinsic motivation. It also means I can look back to see when I last had a shower and argue convincingly with myself that I really should take a shower today.

Lastly, I ditched and restarted my todo list for work. Over the last six months, I’ve popped the odd nice to have idea down for when I have some time to fill. I have accumulated a list of items I’m unlikely to do and now just act as clutter. There’s little I find more demotivating than a todo list that I know I will never tick off 80% of the items. That’s not a system for getting things done; that’s a system to induce depression. I don’t want to lose all that information though. It may be I have reason to come back and check if I’ve missed something in the future. I have archived it off and didn’t even consider what I could carry over (because then it would become a wish list again). My new list contains the few tasks I knew I had to complete this week. Suddenly my todo list went from 30 items to four items. Much more achievable.

This week ended exceptionally, though. I have written this from the side of my son’s hospital bed, so please forgive the shortness of it. He is improving, and hopefully will be discharged this weekend.