Looking for accountability partners (task check in) #2

I managed to finish getting samples out to client and took my car in for a very expensive repair. I'm glad both are done. I did not return the clothes yet, that is planned for this afternoon.

So today I plan to:
1. Return clothes
2. Get blood test dr. wants for next week's dr. appt.
3. Finish report I wanted to have done last week (or at least work on it for an hour).
4. Call my sister - I've been avoiding this because she doesn't understand my depression and then I get upset.

Have a good day all!

I really appreciate your trying to help. I was so upset yesterday. Also because I was so tired from having worked 9 hours straight and then getting blocked, couldn't work more because I got too "low" about not meeting that deadline and knowing I was gonna have to ask for an extension, that or I was gonna kill myself trying to work more the same afternoon lol. Luckily that was fine, I was given the chance to finish it by next morning. I did finish it OK but because of that am tired now too, lol


I frankly think it also already helps if I can just talk to someone or somewhere regularly about how to plan stuff out, and especially how I get to step / slip on these banana peels LOL, if you know what I mean. I mean when trying to get this stuff working, I have stupid little issues. Those then fu** up the whole thing for me. I wasn't like this before this whole issue started for me...

(Some of the below parts, the italicised stuff in brackets, I don't expect you or anyone else to engage with it deeply! It just helped me think now that we are talking about tips here. It's a lot of help actually, getting my brain moving like this.)


Like now today I went to meet my social worker, I didn't see her for several months bc lockdown. And she asked about how I'm doing and I realised while talking to her why I crashed last weekend and why I couldn't do the jobs nicely on time like I wanted to do them. Well at least I realised part of the why.

(Not a solution yet though. I basically just faced how I was probably doing something like full time work for these few days because it was 5 days and needed 6 hours on average each day to complete the work tasks, because it required about 30 hours in total. 15+15. And it's full time even though not 8 hours a day because I did not have extra rest for "weekend days" before these 5 days.....and in general it's supposed to be part time....long story but full time work seems too much for me for now yeah)

I am just weird (if you read the above paragraph I put in brackets), because since my cPTSD I just keep forgetting basic things like I need rest days like that. And I just plain forget everything about planning, time management, and I do not feel it properly if a task is easy or hard. It's overly hard initially, for the first few hours of the work or whatever. Etc. I swear I am not ADHD


Anyway .... Again the real point is... On my own it takes very long to figure those things out because I just don't have my brain moving like when I can talk to someone else about it. I think that's the depression part

So I'll see if I can talk about it at that link/resource you gave. Besides the structured accountability partner thingy

I'll look at the book too if I can download it.

(I've looked at books before but they don't really take into account these issues of mine as above. There was a CBT book that did sorta.....it had an example of a guy, a college student, who was embarrassed and upset about how due to his depression he had to plan out in this painstaking way which school assignments he was going to do on which days and specifically which parts of the assignments. The CBT therapist was helping him plan it out and I dunno, it was nice as an acknowledgment that this thing can exist, where you used to deal with tasks very well, and then you are like you forgot how to do the planning and all that. But his case seemed easier because he could feel how hard or easy a task would be. So he could plan it out like that with the therapist's help. For me that planning was too advanced, I can't do it like that. I can't feel these things most of the time now, it's completely messed up lol. cPTSD+depression together is a bi*** but it's getting better and that's why I want to give this a go, sorting this out and relearning how to do all this.)

***

Oh I just noticed you did mention this in your earlier post:

So you did 12 hour days before, yeah sounds like me LOL!

It's true and it's a very rational plan that working 2 hours on it each day is way more comfortable and less stressful and the quality of the work done will probably be better too. I think when I tried to do it like this I had this issue that when the task is a "new topic", then the first few hours are harder so if I was to split it up 2 hours every day it would be probably overwhelming for the first 1-2 days and then I would not be able to start

....hm that's my thinking right now anyway. I haven't considered this so much before. But it did contribute to my crash this last weekend, not being able to work much on Friday which made me delayed with everything. So maybe I can't split things up evenly in this neat way for each day like that. I don't know if this matters for others that much or just for me in my bad state.

What do you think about splitting up your portfolio work tasks based on effort and not simply based on time? I hope in your case this will not be an issue though! Maybe in your case new topics do not feel like harder effort than when you are already familiar with the stuff.

(It's complex anyway though, I did already try to make it easier, but it wasn't easy enough.... The idea was, something like 2 hours for this 15-hour job on Friday, 2 hours on Saturday, 4 hours on Sunday, 4 hours on Monday, 3 hours on Tuesday. But thinking of 2 hours for Friday was POOF INSTANT overwhelm. Because I was also supposed to do something like, a couple of hours (undefined number) for Friday, Saturday, Sunday for a task I already started on earlier but wasn't fully feeling comfortable with that task yet. Though more comfortable than when I started that one a while ago. ... Also I have to say, on Thursday I was tired, had to recover from previous crazy work bout, crash&working hard at night, deadline pressure blah blah, and that didn't help either with overwhelm!!)

How was the hike? I noticed you put it first on your list, is this a list in order of priorities? I like that actually, sometimes you do want to put fun sports in front of work/school tasks lol!

Ah I see. I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues too with this. Maybe there need to be different "levels" for these accountability partners/groups Because we are not all at the same phase in recovery, I think.

When I tried working with accountability partners before in the informal way, one person was really flaky (not on this forum), then with two other people I was able to do the commitments okay but I did not have many, only like 1-2 hours a day because I had an easier period with work too. And then I just got low at one point and then I suddenly couldn't do any of it at all.

Are you going to try the subreddit or the discord server? I don't really use reddit but I do have discord installed from earlier. And discord is more interactive than reddit.

That's great! I don't know what the samples are about but this sounds work related. Do you do remote work too or this is totally different?

What is it that your sister doesn't understand about your depression? I'm genuinely interested if you don't mind sharing about this.

I have been taking it easy today due to back and leg pain. Tonight I have a Zoom meeting and have to take out the trash and that’s it for me. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow pain wise before planning.

I hope everyone has a peaceful, productive day tomorrow.

I washed dishes and put stuff in my junk pile. I also had a good therapy session yesterday. Today, I want to:

1. Clean my kitchen.
2. Read some of my books.
3. Play one of my new games.

I hope all of you are well. Best wishes for a happy, productive day!!

The hike was good - and I do have some low effort tasks identified for when I don't feel like working on my portfolio at all. It seems like it is human nature in some way to delay doing something until it's due, doesn't it?

1. Portfolio.
2. Finish homework
3. Dishes

Cool about that.

I don't know if procrastination is human nature.

I did read once that some people are more pressure prompted and some people like to do everything by a schedule instead.

So maybe it's invididual too. Both approaches have their advantages.

And then there's a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with human nature or individual personality either, like if you are overloaded then of course you are gonna have a harder time with it all, not feeling like doing it all

Or when you have to do something that just is harder for you than most things, or you just don't enjoy it too naturally (maybe this part is universal human nature, I don't know). By the latter I mean like, if your direction in life is not the most suitable for you, doesn't truly fit you.

Also, there is such a thing as "adaptive procrastination" vs "maladaptive procrastination". The adaptive version really just means being pressure prompted. It can save time and can be a more efficient approach for some people. The maladaptive version is what is actually procrastination and what doesn't help anyone. That is when it causes stress rather than help with saving time and increase efficiency.

And then with some things, it's the life situation rather than anything else.

So I think it is not easy for most people in some life situations, college/university being a typical example, because most people are not the academic type or even if they are, they have to study some "useless subjects" because of how someone arbitrarily put the curriculum together. Plus people going to college do not have a fully matured brain yet either (prefrontal lobe matures late) and they are learning for the first time to live alone and live their own life independently, meanwhile they are still learning to have intimate relationships too. And figuring out what they really want to do in life, their direction. Etcetera. So I think all that is a lot together to pull off. It's not even a life situation so natural like in previous centuries. So it really is typical for people in this life situation to have to procrastinate on things like exams lol.

I know external deadlines work well for me. I've had a year to complete my portfolio. I worked on it pretty steadily for a few months then dropped the ball completely for 6-8 months. Now I have two months left before it is due and I am scrambling

1. Portfolio
2. Homework
3. Something outside

It is actually so nice outside that I am tempted to ditch everything and go swimming instead.

Alive 99: I am a self-employed consultant and I contacted some peers with a list of research questions back in March and April and planned to write it up and then distribute it to the same group of people. Now I'm dragging my feet on getting the results/research out to potential clients and peers. So it keeps appearing on my task list. I tend to have really productive months then I have very low productivity months. I used to mainly work at client offices before the pandemic. I now mostly do the work from home and some days the only thing I feel I accomplish is doing the "paid" work.

Yeah. External deadlines work well for most people, for me too. For me regular deadlines are the best for now, so the work is not too big in one go. If I get to feel better then I won't have a problem with "too big" work.

Btw I see nothing wrong with "dropping the ball" for a while if the 12 months are way more than enough for the job.

And yeah yeah go swimming lol.

Ah I see. Yeah I think home office sucks ***, like it's TOTALLY UNHEALTHY mentally. It's just wrong on so many levels, I could write a loooooong essay on it.

A BIG part of my problem is that I'm doing home office!!

Though it would be mitigated by being VERY regularly checked up on. Every day. I'm trying to find accountability partners rightnow on that server that hvert mentioned. Are you interested in joining it too?

Oh, and where I said earlier, "then with two other people I was able to do the commitments okay but I did not have many, only like 1-2 hours a day because I had an easier period with work too. And then I just got low at one point and then I suddenly couldn't do any of it at all".... I mean, I couldn't do it nicely during the day. Only at night, ugh.

Also I'm not sure if you skipped my earlier post entirely. Or if the question about depression was too private. Let me know please

I took my cat to the vet today and then didn't have any energy once I got home. It didn't help that the AC is out. My main accomplishment was fixing some lemonade and a breakfast sandwich. Tomorrow I will rest. I'll probably sleep during the day. I hope everyone is well.

I am spending more time on my homework assignment than I should. It's still not done.
1. Finish homework
2. Dishes
3. Portfolio

I have a few things to do today:

1. Sound healing ceremony
2. Meeting from 12-4
3. SKY breathing and meditation lesson at 6:00
4. Housework
5. Errands

Busy day. My brother has appointments every day next week and the doctors have requested I attend. I need to make this weekend count. Thankfully, I had some blissful days of floating this week for stress relief.

I hope everyone has a peaceful, productive day.

I didn't work on my homework at all yesterday. I have been binging on the portfolio. I know I will work on it today as well but want to work on some other things too.

1. Dishes
2. Exercise
3. Weekly review

Lol interesting concept, binging on a work task (i.e. your portfolio)

Sounds like you were productive overall.

It’s stopped raining for now. Good weather this morning to landscape the ground that the plumbers churned up while fixing a leak.

1. Landscape
2. Weekly review
3. Prepare for next week

I hope everyone has a peaceful, productive day.

I don't mind doing some work from home. I need to think about the accountability partners thing as I tend to take on too much and not follow through. I'm currently also looking for a new therapist as my current one is way too expensive and not a great match.

My sister usually treats depression as "sadness" and will say things like don't say you feel that way or I'm sure you don't feel that bad. Which just negates my honest feelings. She was married and left home when I was 7 and we don't have much, other than parents, in common. I care about her but many times feel worse after talking to her since she doesn't take my feeling seriously (or at least doesn't seem to).

I spent the weekend relaxing and talking to a couple friends on the phone. I managed to get the tasks I listed last week completed. I'm going to keep Monday light:
1. Call insurance company to find out about coverage for new therapist.
2. Phone call / interview for some short term work.
3. Work another hour on my report (same as before and I'm aiming to finish it by Wed or Thursday at latest).

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I haven't been feeling well so I haven't been doing any housework. But I have been working on projects that just require a computer. Moving around physically is difficult for me right now. Maybe today I will:

1. Open some packages.
2. Clean off my kitchen table.
3. Clean off my kitchen counter.

That's all I can handle. I will have to refill one of the cat's water dispensers and check their litter box. I dread it cause it will hurt. But I just had a thought. I could do each task in two steps. Short enough so that I don't feel any pain. It just takes longer, but that is much better. I hope everyone has a good day today.