Dividing "things I need to do by categories"

[jack]

It took me a long time to develop a normal amount of "doing necessary things". Partly I had problems getting started on things (from big projects to every day things like getting out of bed). Partly I resented learning a rote system that didn't fit what I prioritised, so I didn't learn a system of "do this amount of housework every day" routine that I might have benefited from. Partly I was very perfectionist, so it felt futile to do *some* when I still wasn't doing *all*

I've got a lot better in various ways. Partly I have built up routines for day-to-day stuff. I have through various different tricks/habits/self-therapy slowly de-mystified "getting started". But there's a lot I'd still like to improve on.

I used to survive by basically living a status quo that had terrible housework, and a lot of regular socialising, but almost none of what you might call "working toward things". So in some ways that worked well, but I didn't want to get to age 80 and discover that I still went to the pub twice a week, but had never achieved anything and still lived in a similar student-style flat to when I was in my early twenties. Although I mean, maybe I should have been happier with that trade off, but I wasn't. But because my brain is infested with counter-productive perfectionism, as soon as I started to get better at things, it felt like I needed to be getting better at things ALL THE TIME.

Ideally I'd have regular self-care time. And regular socialising with other people. And time for the creative hobbies I enjoy doing: writing, GMing roleplaying, designing board games, programming, etc. And time for self-improvement, time for self-therapy, learning to dress better, learning to be a more pleasant person to be around. And time for "we really should have done this at some point" chores. And now I'm adding to the list "activism" as the crises I'm living through have ever more impossible to ignore. And so on.

But that is... a lot. I probably *can't* do all of that. But I can't bring myself to officially decide not to bother on any of them.

I've been through several previous systems. Recently I've been trying out "no responsibilities sat" where I can do just nothing, or work on what I feel like, without feeling constrained by "what I feel like I should do" which often killed my motivation. And I added "overdue chores Sunday", not the entire day, but basically I'd try to do SOME chore/chores which had been lingering with me never finding time for it, without feeling guilt for whether it had been on the list for days or years.

I realised the reason those worked is that it didn't make so much difference if I did the self-care and chores a lot or a little, as long as there kept being SOME at a steady rate, but not so much they took over everything else, or so little that they never happened.

Partly, I made the effort to stop thinking of all the chores as "I'll catch up once and then I'll be a Functioning Adult TM" but instead, "if I do a little bit every week or so on necessary house-ownership care, or necessary body-having appointments, or buying things that we might need but were never urgent, then over time I will be mostly up to date on the important things". And new things will always arrive, but as long as the new stuff is added.

Now I'm seriously considering... should I do that for everything? Not so much have a dedicated day, as I don't know if I want to do all those things the same amount. But maybe have a shuffled list, where if I have some time, I can say, "pick one or two of these at random, work on one of those for a bit", to ensure, I keep doing SOME stuff on all of them.

What does everyone else do? Do you have a way of balancing so many demands? Or do you in practice live in a status quo of "if things keep going like this, then in 20 years I'll feel it went well", and responding to additional demands as they come up?

Comments

[naath]

For things that (I think) need to be done I have daily/weekly/monthly/longer time set aside to do them; for everything else I mostly say 'whatever I decide to do from $pile is good' and it very much goes in phases (right now is "read all the fic" season; maybe by September it might be "knit all the things" are "write stuff" who knows?

I don't beat myself up over my standards not being universally thought good; good enough for me will do. If you can't / don't want to keep up with eg hoovering the the standard you want it is possible to exchange money for goods and services; sometimes this is the right answer (dishwasher === sooooo good)

[lydy]

I am crap at housework and remain crap at housework. I am also terrible at doing anything on a regular basis. But I tell you what, cat boxes really do need to be cleaned on the regular. When I started playing Pokemon Go!, I noticed that I was highly motivated by virtual pets. So I got Habitica.

Habitica won't work for everyone. But I found that, in addition to motivating me to clean the cat boxes on the regular, it was an interesting tool for figuring out how my own motivations work. I was careful to start small. I was able to confirm that I am easily discouraged by penalties, and encouraged by positive results. But to my surprise, I found that I am also motivated by small amounts of penalties, especially if I feel like I can take the hit, but then choose not to. High stakes work terribly for me, but low stakes are motivational.

I love the fact that you can literally set up anything as a task or habit. It's self-directed. I added, as a habit, recently, "Adulting" and "Serious, High Quality Adulting" for times when I had done something hard or unpleasant that wasn't actually on my task list. I have my litter box cleaning on a schedule, but I have things that don't need to happen on a schedule as habits. I also set to-dos without a time frame, as a check list.

I was very doubtful about Habitica's claims that it will help you build better habits over time. But I think...maybe a little? I find that keeping the litter boxes clean is much easier now than when I started. I balk less at things like emptying the dish washer and doing my laundry. I still haven't solved the "floss your teeth _every day_" problem, but I do floss a lot more often than I used to. I tried putting that in as a daily with penalties, but I failed at it too often, so I moved it to habit.

I have no idea if this will be helpful. Two of the friends that I tried to get to use it with me both decided it didn't work for them. But for me, I found it both useful as a checklist of things that needed to get done, and as tool for understanding what I actually prioritize. It provided me with a tool for mindfulness about the logistics of living my life. And I think the mindfulness might be the piece that would help you? When you have all the conflicting stuff, sorting out which things are actually difficult, which things you need help on, which things turn out to be easier, yeah. Also, that thing they tell you about cleaning being easier if you do it on the regular turns out to be depressingly true.

ETA: I first heard about this from Scott Lynch, who mentioned that his partner, Elizabeth Bear, used it. It was in the context of her doing task and him rolling his eyes and saying, "Yeah that's why you have a billion experience points on Habitica." Which was funny, but also, hey, smart professional writer uses this tool, how interesting.

[green_knight]

I've had considerable success with mental reframing of 'chores' (Things I have to do, where I do a lot of pushing back against the 'have to' and try to weasel out and avoid until the last possible moment) as 'things I do to make my partner's life better'. Sadly, I have never shown myself the same love, but this framing really works for me. Also, together we are people who (do the dishes every night, hoover, etc, or more generally 'get things done'.)

Q11 from This Captain Awkward post may feel relevant, because if we can convince ourselves that the habit we want to form is all our own idea and that nobody is making us, we can motivate ourselves with that. seems to be a perfect match for what I've just described.

As for positive engagement - juggling all the things I _want_ to do - that's probably worth a post of its own.