"Try to think what you would think someone like you in the same situation you're in now should do, try to do that."
Weirdly I've found asking people what advice they'd give someone very similar to themselves to be the most generally reliable approach and tends to make people take a step back and stop panicking/stressing about things so much.
]]>sorry
To Charlie & Elizabeth, I wish you the best for getting to a happier space.
]]>Yup, know this one.
I am, quite frankly, a reluctant housewife. I loathe housework: it's horrible, it's boring, it's never-ending and it takes time away from my packed schedule of doing not much (did I mention I'm unemployed and mentally ill? Yeah? Oh good). So for a long time there, my partner and I were perpetually living in about second-degree squalor (persistent mess, unwashed dishes in the sink, unswept floors, rubbish in places other than the bin etc) because I just could not be arsed to do anything about the housework. This wasn't doing much for my mental state either, because I was spending a lot of time beating myself up because for gods sakes, it's just housework, it's not like it's hard or anything, right? And I can't even do that consistently? How useless must I be! (Rant courtesy Meg's Jerk!Brain, which hates her, and wants her to be miserable).
What turned things around? Well, I came to the gradual realisation the thing which I really resented about the housework was the time it took, and the lack of reward I got for it (the inherent "reward" for cleaning anything is seeing it get messy again), combined with the never-ending nature of the task (at this point I was still in the "Clean ALL The Things" mindset regarding housework - it was all marathon efforts which left me exhausted for about two or three days at a stretch afterwards). The whole thing offended my capitalist work ethic: this was work I was performing for which I was not getting paid, and it sucked. I've done crap jobs before, and the only thing which made them even vaguely acceptable to me was I got paid for the work I was doing. No wonder I wasn't actually performing the work!
So I started paying myself for the housework. Not much - I was on the dole at the time (and still am), and I certainly can't afford to be paying myself Australian minimum wage for the housework I'm doing. But I just started paying myself 10c per chore for the work I was doing, and aiming to get 20 chores per day done (so, $2 per day, or about $10 per week). The money goes into a higher-interest savings account, and it's earmarked for things I want - clothes, books, games, whatever. My fairy money for spending on treats.
The house looks a lot better these days.
The other thing I taught myself is that I don't have to do All The Things every single day - I'm allowed to stop when I reach 20 chores done, and the house will still refrain from falling down. I also learned so long as I clean up more mess each day than gets created that day, things will slowly improve - which means if I get behind, so long as I pick the task up again, it will quickly return to its usual level. An example: last week I had a Bad Week, in that the depression was really playing up and I had next to no energy. Among the various tasks I wound up leaving un-done was folding my clean laundry, and it soon piled up in the basket. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with the whole basket at once - I have a limit of 10 items folded per day. Even in the dead of winter, wearing multiple layers, I don't wear 10 items each and every day - and at present it's summer. So at 10 items a day, I cleared the whole basket in about 3 - 4 days work, even with extra laundry being added in on top over the first few days.
Other tips I've discovered over the years:
That's a keeper!
]]>And I could pay myself for every 500 words I get down,as well. I adore the phrase 'fairy money', too. Brilliant.
This is part of literature, too. In THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, the hero is all miffed off because he was running errands for pin money for some reason, but his girlfriend quietly took out the amount he was ripped off for, and gave it to him. "See, you've been paid, and now you don't have to be angry about it any more."
]]>I am effectively the key writer on a magazine that comes out every 6 weeks. I produce around 2500 words every 6 weeks, but these are an insanely condensed summation of knowledge and research. When I started out it was my dream job. It was and is an extension of who I am in some way. Yet coming into the 6th year, the relentless schedule has worn me down. Everybody acknowledges that my contribution is vital - and we stagger on paying a small group of us a sort of living wage...
But while everyone acknowledges the work is vital, that doesn't stop them asking me to do a bunch of other things in the business. And I know everyone has to pitch in, so I typically spend the first 2 weeks of every cycle pitching in. So then I have 4 weeks. And it just doesn't get any easier. I've been doing it for all this time and I can't "just knock one out and sneak a bit of rest." So, I'm ploughing along exhibiting all sorts of depressive behaviour... and I don't know where I go from here.
]]>Crazy as it may sound if you can Indy publish even two 100k novels a year, it will help reduce your stress because you will be writing for you.
Less than three manuscript pages a day will let you Indy publish those two books a year. Use a pen name so that you can write anything you want without it impacting your "day job".
Kris's latest post is all about what's going on in this thread.
Business Musings: Buggy Whips, Pollsters, Collisions, and Us http://kriswrites.com/2016/02/24/business-musings-buggy-whips-pollsters-collisions-and-us/
]]>It's the treadmill that wears you down, not the output rate. Most of us prefer to work in bursts then take a vacation, but monthly quotas don't permit any time off -- it's like being chased by zombies of the shambling-but-don't-stop variety.
]]>Thanks Elizabeth and Charlie for this. It's one of those posts that shifts the viewpoint such that one can see that the trees really are in a row. Much to ponder and take on board. I recently read a piece about stress and burnout in which I ticked nearly all the boxes, and I had thought I was doing well before that. I'm going to reassess my own reward system now.
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