working it out as I go along

On the twenty-third day of Advent, I felt I wasn’t sure what organisational strategy to use, or what I was supposed to be doing. I started off by writing my daily thoughts. I didn’t finish them though. I left them half way through to go to the loo, then got distracted and went on the internet. However, I made myself do several lots of ‘ten things’. That is a good strategy. It is so small, that it doesn’t feel like a big deal, and once I’ve done one lot of ten things, it’s very easy to do another lot. So I went through different rooms in my house, tidying away ten things. I found too that once I’m in the kitchen making food, then it’s easy to wash up and do landry and stuff, because it’s all to hand. I need to see things to be reminded to do them. Out of sight, out of mind. Unless I have a list, I guess, but today I didn’t make a list. I was going to maybe make one, but I went on the internet and then stayed there. I think I must reinstate the ‘no internet until after 9:00pm’ rule, even if I’m not using time, because even when I have days where I don’t use time, I do sometimes sneak a look at the clock out of curiosity. And of course, once I go on the internet, then I see the time, because it’s there in the bottom right hand corner.

I am finding it quite overwhelming, the whole strategy thing. I think each day really only needs one focus. I suppose once my house is properly tidy, the ten things will take up less time. On Friday and Saturday, they took over, and became the focus of my day.

I noticed that today, the reason I kept going back to the internet was because I hadn’t decided upon something to do, so I had nothing else to return to. I wonder if it will work to decide in the morning, whilst writing my daily thoughts, what I want the main focus of the day to be. The daily thoughts are important to focus me onto the day.

I must also take my health into allowance, which is annoying, but better in the long run, I guess. I do feel very unwell for two weeks every month and get very bad pains (for which I’ve had lots of tests at the hospital and no cause has been found). I thought I was healed from it two years ago, because I went to a healing service and then later I prayed and suddenly the pain was gone – miraculously, it seemed to me. For that time I could eat anything and not get pain, which was very unusual. But then it returned.

However, when journalling the other day, I tried the technique where you write a dialogue with a part of your body which is causing you pain. Again, I know this sounds kooky, but I think it is about getting in touch with your subconscious, and often pains in the body are related to emotional things too. So I wrote a dialogue with my abdomen to see what it (or my subconscious) had to say. And it was strange – it kept saying I need to accept. Accept what, I asked. And the answer was ‘just accept’. The past. Myself. Don’t fight. Just accept. So now when I get the pains, I do concentrate on accepting myself and not fighting anything, and it helps a lot. I’ve had a lot less pain this month. But I still get the unwell, dizzy, shaky, tired feeling. But maybe that is to be fixed by spending more time in my inner world, as that seemed to work yesterday.

So, in finding organisational strategies, I must also find strategies to manage my health. And I know it’s important to realise too that I do get easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, and I spend a lot of energy trying to figure things out that are obvious to other people, and thus I use up a lot more energy than ‘normal’ people and so get very quickly tired. So I know I have limitations on how much I can do. I don’t like this. I want to be able to work as many hours as I choose, and get lots done, but that is not practical or healthy, so I try to accept my limitations. It’s odd – our culture is not about accepting limitations. It’s more about how wrong it is to limit oneself, and how to find ways to achieve more, and push yourself past the limits. So many books I’ve read have that message, and I realise I have become indoctrinated by it. So now I am relearning.

Tomorrow is the last day of Advent (I presume, at least. Or does one count Christmas day as well?) and I feel like I should have achieved some super plan by now, and be ready for some great epiphany tomorrow. Of course, I know that’s silly, but still it is what I feel would be nice and satisfying. But now, so that I don’t feel a sense of let-down, I think I will try to see this Advent organisational plan as a start, rather than an end. It’s been a time for me to experiment with different strategies, and get to know myself better, so I can see what works for me. I haven’t yet implemented some great plan, and I am still confused, but I feel better equipped for figuring out a plan, and starting to become organised. And after all, I have the whole year until September. This is the point of having a year out – to work out an organisational plan and start applying it to my studies.

On the twenty-second day of Advent, I didn’t feel well. I felt all shaky and dizzy and physically overwhelmed (I think the pinhole glasses made me dizzy, because I also wore them to do yoga, and you’re not supposed to wear them when you’re moving around), so I stayed in bed, and slept for a bit longer. Then I thought and visualised and prayed, and found myself soon feeling deeply peaceful and no longer unwell. Then I read in bed, and then I realised that it was very rejuvenating to live in one’s inner world for a while – to completely ignore the outer world. And then I wondered if this is my problem – that I can’t simultaneously experience my inner world and the outer world, due to the ‘mono thinking’ thing. And that surviving in the world as an adult requires being in the outer world a lot of the time, so my inner world gets lost.

When I felt better, I got up and ate. I went to Asda, and it was so very crowded that it was a horrible experience. I think perhaps having spent the earlier part of the day living in my head, my self-awareness was increased, so I was more aware of the effect the crowds and noise and busy-ness was having on me. It was so crowded that I was constantly looking for ways of squeezing past the people and finding the aisles I wanted. At several points, I became aware that I was clutching my shopping basket to my stomach and making my way through the shop with a look of sheer panic on my face, so then I consciously made myself not look like that, because obviously it’s just a supermarket and not anything to panic about!

As well as buying food, I bought sweets and crisps. I have been eating so much healthy food that I felt that since it is the Christmas season (even though I don’t celebrate it!) I would like to buy some treats for myself. I bought sweets and crisps with no artificial colour or artificial flavours, but still, they contained wheat and sugar and I knew they wouldn’t have a good effect on me, and it is silly really to buy such things, but I bought them anyway. And then when I got home, I ate some of them, and went on the internet, and had fun interacting with online friends, and felt a bit decadant (yeah, I know it’s a silly thing to feel decandant about) and again stayed up late on the internet.

And then, when I went to bed, I wondered what is becoming of my organisation plan. And I thought about how I don’t like to do the same thing every day, because then I feel bored and trapped. So I wondered how my organisation plans can incorporate different ways of doing things. Maybe the 40-minute segments are sometimes appropriate, and the chronological lists are important for different days, and sometimes a day of staying inside my head is the best thing to do. But I don’t know how to make all these different things into one big master plan and know when to use each one.  And how do I incorporate the inner and outer worlds? And paying attention to time and ignoring time? Day 22 brought more questions than answers. And Advent is nearly over. I am not sure if am any closer to finding an organisation strategy that will work long term, and which I can apply to various situations. But at least my house is a lot tidier.

On the twenty-first day of Advent, I didn’t want to repeat the pattern of the day before, so I decided that it would be a completely different sort of day (I decided that since it was Sunday, I could use the excuse of a ‘day of rest’). I decided I wouldn’t do chores. I decided to try speed-reading some of my study books, so fast that I don’t actually take them in (because if I try to take them in, I find I worry about not absorbing the whole lot, and that is distracting) but simply to get a very broad overview – of headings and key words. And also I’m always curious how much it is possible to take in just by skimming through a book.

I decided to try using my ‘pinhole glasses‘ that I bought a while ago from ebay. I hate reading with normal glasses. I have to because I am so very short-sighted that if I take my glasses off, the page has to be about an inch from my nose for me to see what it says, which is not comfortable, and means I can’t see the whole page. But somehow my glasses act as a barrier and stop me getting fully absorbed with a book, because they make my eyes focus differently from how they otherwise would. This has always been the case. I’ve had glasses since I was seven, and as a child I would always read with my glasses off. So the optician thought there must be something wrong with me, and prescribed bifocals, but I hated those just as much and also took them off to read. Then, somewhere in my teenage years I realised I could no longer comfortably read without my glasses.

But I randomly discovered pinhole glasses on the internet and thought I would give them a try. And they are more restful on my eyes. I can see better than with no glasses if I wear them, but I can’t see anywhere near as clearly as with my glasses. I can see how they would work brilliantly for someone a lot less short-sighted than I, but I think for my eyes the holes would have to be a lot tinier and more frequent. But still, they are restful to wear. So I tried to read with them on. Now, it turned out that I couldn’t read with them on either, but I could read the headings, and I could get a sense of the shape of the text on the page, and that made me familiar with the books. And there was something oddly soothing about just turning the pages and not knowing what they were saying. My common sense did tell me this was kind of pointless, but I felt I was getting some familiarity with the books and thus hopefully removing any mental blocks I have about studying for my course.

Since I couldn’t actually read what was on the pages, I then decided I might as well take off the pinhole glasses and read with no glasses at all. I read one book like this, but it turned out to be such an interesting book that I put it right next to my nose and read what it actually said!

So, on day 21, I looked at study books. I then went on the internet for ages and regretted spending so long online.

On the twentieth day of Advent, I barely recognised my house when I came downstairs for breakfast. It seemed rather empty without the stairs being and hallway being covered in clutter. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but decided on the whole it was a good thing.

Now I wasn’t sure whether to make my list starting with the things I hadn’t one on Day 19, or to make a similar list again and leave those things till last again. I opted for the latter – because the things I’d omitted were more leisurely stuff like journalling and studying. I wanted to keep up the habit of doing small daily things like my ‘ten things’ routines and yoga and leave more leisurely things to the end. So I made a detailed list to complete in order, and I did all kinds of things, and extra things that I thought of, like washing the kitchen floor. But by the time I’d done all those chores, I simply didn’t feel motivated to do more leisurely things. They seemed like simply reward stuff rather than necessary stuff, and I’d rather go on the internet. So I went on the internet, planning to spend only half an hour there, but ended up spending all evening, and the early hours of the morning there. And I went on the internet before 9:00pm, because I told myself that since I’m not keeping track of time when I make chronological lists, the ‘no internet before 9:00pm’ can’t apply.

I analysed this pattern. I like the internet, but there gets to a point where I am not gaining anything from being on there. I’m simply finding it hard to motivate myself to switch from the internet to something else. And some tasks seem rather big, and it’s harder to switch to a big task than it is to switch to doing something small like picking up ten things.