I need help being a functioning member of society.

I'm a guy, but I've been in a situation where I was unmotivated to do pretty much everything. It sucks!

I started seeing a counselor/therapist once a week and we started developing a game plan. Basically, to overcome my procrastination I had to do two major things:

Make a schedule, written down, of little things to do each day - things like pick up laundry, clear off coffee table. Vacuum. What I ended up was with something like:

  • Monday: 4pm, pick up laundry. 4:10pm, clear off coffee table. 4:15, put dishes in dishwasher. 4:20, vacuum living room and sweep kitchen. 4:30, watch tv show. 5pm, make sandwich for dinner (I was living alone at the time). 5:30.

    • Tuesday: 4pm, pick up laundry. 4:10pm, clear off coffee table. 4:15, put dishes in dishwasher. 4:20, put laundry in laundry machine and turn on.

You get the idea, it was basically about 45 minutes of stuff to do after I got off work. I also made a checklist of things to do right before bed that I read through each night. "Brush teeth, lock doors, turn off lights, get into MF'ing bed (because I'd sleep on the couch with TV on and wouldn't sleep well)..." that sort of stuff.

All that started to build good habits. It took a lot of effort at first, but then I started feeling good about myself.

When I was out of work for a short period it was easy to stay up until 4am and sleep until 3pm. Don't do that! Get up at 8am and go to bed at ~10 to 11pm. It's better for your health and will help motivate you to do stuff.

The one thing that helped the most though, and I can't stress this enough: Find a hobby you're passionate about. I have two, woodworking and cycling. I reward myself with one of those two things. If I wanna go ride my bike I can't until I do my daily chores (which is only about 30 minutes worth of work). If I want to build something out of wood I have to fix something in the house or clean something up first.

Woodworking is particularly good because there are times you have to wait for glue to dry (30 minutes or so) during which I'll do some chores.

Anyway, hope maybe some of this helps. Honestly, finding a productive hobby I really like was the key. I tried a lot too - sewing, cooking, baking, etc. I enjoy baking, but not as much as cycling or woodworking. I did not like the others.

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread Parent