If you’re a mental girl, like me, then you’ve probably figured out that this bullshit we call Life is not always everything it’s cracked up to be. But we need to find ways to make the best of it so we can go on with our fabulousness and kick some proverbial ass. So here are Mama’s suggestions for making this Life thing a little less suck.
Lists
I’m notorious for making lists of things. There are things I need to do, things I need to get at the store, things I need to remember to tell shrinky-poo, things I need to cook… You get the idea. And lists are good, provided you can find them. I know you, you’ve made all these great lists on little scraps of paper and then promptly lost them. Am I right? Of course I am, go sit back down.
My solution to this is to only keep my lists in 3 different places, only 3. Anything I need to keep track of for work gets turned into a Task in Outlook. Anything I need to remember to do for home gets turned into a Task in Gmail which is then linked into an app on my Droid called GTasks. And random, short term shit at home gets written on the little whiteboard on the fridge. Problem solved.
Self Care
When you’re caught in the throes of either mania or depression it’s hard to remember much of anything, let alone taking care of yourself. But it’s important. No one wants to smell your funk from not having bathed too many days in a row. That’s like inviting the cops to come check on what the neighbors suspect is a dead body. Not cool.
But since it is often hard to find the energy to do it, I say make the most of it. Because of my shitty skin that fucking hates me I can’t take baths anymore, it’s all showers for me. And I do as much in that shower as I possibly can. This includes: shaving any of the bits I feel like shaving (mostly the chin whiskers), brushing my teeth, washing my face, grinding the dead shit off my heels and elbows, in addition to all of the “normal” things one would do in the shower.
After that it’s just a matter of throwing on some clean clothes, running a comb through your hair, and calling it good.
Housework
I won’t lie, I absolutely hate cleaning house. Some smart guy, probably a horny 16 year old kid who wants his girlfriend to finish her chores faster, needs to invent a way for my house to clean itself. Chop chop, get on that shit! Until that day I guess I’ll have to keep finding little ways to make it suck less. Except the vacuuming, that needs to suck.
I try to run a load of laundry as soon as there’s a full load to be run. For us this tends to happen every other day or so with the hot water stuff. I keep separate hampers for hot water, warm water, and my dress shirts so that it’s real easy to keep an eye on that shit and see when one of them reaches critical mass. If I can I throw the load in the washer before I leave for work in the morning, put it in the dryer when I get home, and then fold it and put it away before bed. Done. Doing it little at a time like that makes it feel not quite as wretched.
Minor maintenance stuff like tidying up and emptying the little trashcans I do every day. It takes a total of about 10 minutes. If I do that shit daily then it doesn’t have a chance to get out of control, like my hair in the humidity, and then I have less of it to do on the weekends.
Personal Organization
Let’s face it, we’re popular people. We have lots of appointments to keep track of. Places to go, people to see, shit to do. And it’s easy to let something important slip if you don’t keep track of it.
I’ve mentioned before that I am all about making my Droid be my bitch. If you must know, her name is Gertrude and she’s my personal bitch; she does it all. In one place she keeps track of both my work and my personal appointments so that when I’m visiting shrinky-poo and need to schedule my next appointment I can whip out Gertrude and figure out the most convenient time. Like. A. Boss.
If you don’t have a Gertrude (paws off dammit, this one is mine) then find a system that works for you. The kicker here is it needs to be something you’re going to remember to have with you any time you need to know what your busy social calendar looks like.
Productivity
Most of us aren’t always satisfied with how much we’re getting done. And in all honesty, I don’t think the normies are either, they just aren’t talking about it like we are. But there are a few things we can do about that.
If you’ve ever read this blog before you probably picked up on the fact that I set 5 goals for myself every week. I think goals are fucking awesome. Make them a little hard, but not impossible. Give yourself a time frame to get them done in. Make them as specific as you can. And then do your best.
If you have a goal or a project that you want to get done that seems to big or just totally beyond being doable, just break that shit down.
DJ, give me a beat…
- What are the smallest possible chunks you could do?
- Do they need to be done in order?
- Make yourself a plan – 10 minutes a day, 30 minutes, hour?
- Then, in the immortal words of some flunky at the ad agency used by Nike, JUST DO IT!
Something really cool happened yesterday. It’s probably only cool to me, but hey, my blog. This story actually starts back in 2010. Let’s hop in Mama’s time machine…
