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lazaefair reblogged your post and added:
Yeah, that’s why I don’t make my lists with the expectation or intention of finishing them because I have the exact same problem of not knowing how long a task lasts. They’re sort of just running lists that I can go back to when I find myself wandering around in a fog not knowing what to do next. And I learned never to write down “clean kitchen” because, yeah, way too big and vague. It’s more like
And all of that gets put onto the to-do list not as sub-tasks under a large first-level task heading, because no, that leads to another ADD spiral. They are put onto the list as first-level tasks all in their own right, which means I can take breaks in between if I need to, and when I accomplish them, I treat them like I accomplished a first-level task, because I did. It’s not perfect because my breaks last way too long. But at least I have the list to refer back to when I jerk myself out of the zone, and I know that the next thing on the list is going to be a little tiny task that hopefully won’t trigger an ADD spiral, so I’m more likely to do it. And I keep reminding myself that it’s okay if I don’t get through the whole list in one evening or whatever, the list is there so the next evening I can remind myself again that there’s another little tiny task that I can do.Also, that thing about spotting something else that needs to be done before the thing I’m trying to do because I’m way too hung up on doing things in the “optimal manner” only to keep spotting more and more things - yeah, TOTALLY understand. So now the rule is that once I’ve made my list, NOTHING ELSE GETS ADDED TO IT. THE END. It’s okay to not do the new thing right away because I know that will lead to exactly the spiral you’ve described, so no, I have to stick to the already-written list. When it comes to household chores, most of the time it actually doesn’t matter what order I do them in and my brain is lying to me that I’m a bad person for not doing everything perfectly optimally. So the new thing I’ve spotted gets written down for doing AFTER the already-written tasks.Again, not perfect, because right now for example I’ve done maybe half of what I wanted to do this weekend, and that’s after I super downscaled my ambitions for the weekend. But I just have to keep telling myself, most of the time it doesn’t matter to other people nearly as much as it matters to me. It’s okay not to finish. It’s okay not to finish.But overall, I’ve slowly managed to get it together enough that I’ve gone from “nightmare roommate” to “not completely terrible to live with” (and she even thanks me for what I contribute to the household now!) so I’ll take that as a win..
__________
I hope you don’t mind that I copy-pasted this into a new post because it was getting so long– this is a good approach but I am so scattered I don’t know if I could reliably break a task down like this!! I might try it.
We have a whiteboard in our kitchen where I had been writing down shopping lists and meal ideas and I stopped updating it about six or seven years ago. I could probably clean it off and try it again– make my huge fantasy lists at work, and then come home and copy them over onto the whiteboard, so I could have like, a long-term Things I Want quadrant, and then a short-term OK Baby Steps quadrant, because the other thing that happens is that Dude is unable to remember anything I tell him for longer than seconds at a time, and so either accidentally prevents me from working on what I want to do (say… for example… decides to spend all weekend cooking a complicated dish… in the kitchen… so I really don’t feel I can clean it… which is what happened this weekend, he seriously spent 18 hours making French Onion Soup starting with a beef bone), so if I actually had a list he could look at and maybe add to–
well, he would ignore it, that’s what happens. But if I make a little progress with this method before I inevitably abandon it, then maybe it’ll be something.
I guess step 1 is seeing if I can get that whiteboard erased now that the abandoned lists have been on there for half a decade or more…
(edited to fix: the crossposter cut off my response!)
lazaefair reblogged your post and added:
Yeah, that’s why I don’t make my lists with the expectation or intention of finishing them because I have the exact same problem of not knowing how long a task lasts. They’re sort of just running lists that I can go back to when I find myself wandering around in a fog not knowing what to do next. And I learned never to write down “clean kitchen” because, yeah, way too big and vague. It’s more like
- Open dishwasher
- Unload bottom of dishwasher
- Unload top of dishwasher
- Gather dishes and put by sink
- Put dishwashable things in dishwasher
- Put soap on sponge
- Wash non-dishwashable things
- Put away things on counters
- Wet towel
- Wipe down big counter
- Wipe down little counter
- Put towel in laundry basket
- Get out broom
- Sweep dirt into piles
- Gather piles up in dustpan
- Dump piles
- Put broom and dustpan away
And all of that gets put onto the to-do list not as sub-tasks under a large first-level task heading, because no, that leads to another ADD spiral. They are put onto the list as first-level tasks all in their own right, which means I can take breaks in between if I need to, and when I accomplish them, I treat them like I accomplished a first-level task, because I did. It’s not perfect because my breaks last way too long. But at least I have the list to refer back to when I jerk myself out of the zone, and I know that the next thing on the list is going to be a little tiny task that hopefully won’t trigger an ADD spiral, so I’m more likely to do it. And I keep reminding myself that it’s okay if I don’t get through the whole list in one evening or whatever, the list is there so the next evening I can remind myself again that there’s another little tiny task that I can do.Also, that thing about spotting something else that needs to be done before the thing I’m trying to do because I’m way too hung up on doing things in the “optimal manner” only to keep spotting more and more things - yeah, TOTALLY understand. So now the rule is that once I’ve made my list, NOTHING ELSE GETS ADDED TO IT. THE END. It’s okay to not do the new thing right away because I know that will lead to exactly the spiral you’ve described, so no, I have to stick to the already-written list. When it comes to household chores, most of the time it actually doesn’t matter what order I do them in and my brain is lying to me that I’m a bad person for not doing everything perfectly optimally. So the new thing I’ve spotted gets written down for doing AFTER the already-written tasks.Again, not perfect, because right now for example I’ve done maybe half of what I wanted to do this weekend, and that’s after I super downscaled my ambitions for the weekend. But I just have to keep telling myself, most of the time it doesn’t matter to other people nearly as much as it matters to me. It’s okay not to finish. It’s okay not to finish.But overall, I’ve slowly managed to get it together enough that I’ve gone from “nightmare roommate” to “not completely terrible to live with” (and she even thanks me for what I contribute to the household now!) so I’ll take that as a win..
__________
I hope you don’t mind that I copy-pasted this into a new post because it was getting so long– this is a good approach but I am so scattered I don’t know if I could reliably break a task down like this!! I might try it.
We have a whiteboard in our kitchen where I had been writing down shopping lists and meal ideas and I stopped updating it about six or seven years ago. I could probably clean it off and try it again– make my huge fantasy lists at work, and then come home and copy them over onto the whiteboard, so I could have like, a long-term Things I Want quadrant, and then a short-term OK Baby Steps quadrant, because the other thing that happens is that Dude is unable to remember anything I tell him for longer than seconds at a time, and so either accidentally prevents me from working on what I want to do (say… for example… decides to spend all weekend cooking a complicated dish… in the kitchen… so I really don’t feel I can clean it… which is what happened this weekend, he seriously spent 18 hours making French Onion Soup starting with a beef bone), so if I actually had a list he could look at and maybe add to–
well, he would ignore it, that’s what happens. But if I make a little progress with this method before I inevitably abandon it, then maybe it’ll be something.
I guess step 1 is seeing if I can get that whiteboard erased now that the abandoned lists have been on there for half a decade or more…
(edited to fix: the crossposter cut off my response!)
