Me: line cook, lives in city, no car, works 6 days a week, has no social life, is tired.
You: not doing that.
Purpose: I'm trying to figure out how to make a hard task more bearable. Working six days a week leaves me feeling like I have no free time. I get up, eat, go to work, go home, eat, sleep. On my day off, I run errands, prep meals, and clean up the house. My sleep is interrupted; I don't feel like I have a moment to rest. My job requires me to be on my feet 8hr a day, and Sunday errands tend to take a few hours. At this point, my life feels like an endurance test.
Problems: work is consuming my life. I've lost my appetite and struggle to eat consistently. I participate in my hobbies irregularly. I am not taking care of my body / health. I'm not thinking about my future. My life feels out of my control. Instability.
Proposed solutions.
- Create a schedule.
- I am at work for a fixed number of hours each day. When working during the day, set "morning" and "evening" tasks. When working closing, set tasks; consider doing work that requires focusing for a longer period of time.
- Create a schedule for weekly tasks. When am I going to the laundromat? When am I going to buy groceries? When---and so on.
- Sunday reset.
- This starts on Saturday: clean out the fridge, figure out what you have that you can use, and create a grocery list.
- Clean room, kitchen, and bathroom. Return books to the library. Meal prep, then take out trash and recycling. Review finances; check on loans.
- Food.
- Fallbacks: yogurt with fruit. Sausages with cheese. Eggs (cheese, red pepper, soy sauce, or fish sauce). Popcorn.
- Easy meals: black bean / corn / tomato / cheese bake (don't add pork and olives). Spaghetti squash with pasta sauce (maybe add ricotta). Stew (buy a soup base; the effort ain't always worth it). Fruit.
- Pre-made frozen food? The ingredient lists scare me.
01: week of 20241124
New objective: write objectives for each section of the day. Reflect on how well these objectives were fulfilled. Complete Sunday reset.
Maintenance objective: basic hygiene. Brush teeth twice a day, floss, and shower daily.
- 20241123
- Set objectives, did not choose to follow through with all of them. Columns in bullet journal: "objectives" and "accomplished." Trying to remember to set intentions for how to spend time---if I am not going to work on one of my objectives, I would like to develop a new objective to work on.
- When I come home from work, I feel too tired to shower. Maybe I need to switch to consistently showering in the morning, rather than inconsistently showering at night.
- 20241124
- Revisited some of yesterday's objectives and followed through with them. No work today, so my list of "objectives" and "accomplished" is longer. Managed to accomplish the objectives I started the day with and add new objectives. Included "thinking about" and "wanting" lists in today's bullet journal entry. I'm trying to use these lists as starting points for future objectives. Setting long-term goals has failed me, so I think noting short-term goals (to follow through with at a later date) may be a more useful starting point. I do not genuinely have long-term goals to work towards and gain little from pretending I do.
- I can look at the clock and remember I have n hours, and I can use these hours to do something. They have not yet been spent. They have not yet been wasted. With how well I used to spend tiny pockets of time, with how well, at work, I spend tiny pockets of time, this realization is embarrassing. I know how much time matters. I know every second counts. Yet, when left to my own devices, I choose to squander every single second I can manage. "I am killing time with a razor blade / It is begging for its life" (Downhill - Lincoln).
- 20241125
- I did not go to the library in the morning. However, I did accomplish a few of my objectives. Went to the library right after work---feel like I need more to shift my mentality from 'work' to 'hobby.' Need a moment before I can focus. Maybe drawing will help.
- 20241126
- Despite being exhausted by work, I managed to make some progress on my objectives. The books I was reading were abandoned; I forgot how much Aristotle annoys me. Need to work on memorization in the morning, when my brain is still awake.
- 20241127
- Today's objectives were easy; was getting ready to visit family. Also did some baking. Made a judgement error on time, so there's some dough in my fridge to cook on Saturday.
- 20241128/9
- Happy Thursday. Goal is to be a couch potato, enjoy family, and eat too much food. The last time I had two consecutive days off of work was the first week of October; I'm going to relax the hell out of this.
- 20241130
- Struggling to set objectives for today. I had some idea---finish X book, write up thoughts---of easy things to do. Ignoring 'difficult' technology-related things. There's a mental block: I think I do not have the time. Because transfering files from A-->B-->C is that difficult. I'm going to do the easy one NOW. The hard one will involve installing things and downloading things. But the easy one can be done right now.
02: week of 20241201
New objective: include "yoga" in morning objectives. Consistent sleep schedule---in bed by 11pm, out by 7am. Complete dishes after each meal.
Maintain previous objectives.
03: week of 20241208
New objective: use grocery template. Assign kinds of food to each side of a die; when you can't decide what to eat, roll the die. Voila.