Can you structure yourself?

Post Reply New Topic

I seem to struggle against any routine I have these days. I have no self control. Even if I build up structure it can seemingly be broken in an instant at any time if my mood isn't congruent to being productive, which is most of the time.
How do I get past this?

honestly that's the same problem I am having, however I think an outside force someone to implement it or someone counting on you to do certain things helps a lot.

I think what works best is being at work or school or something that is a ready made structure. perhaps writing the routine down would help.

I have struggled with this in the past.

Best solution that works for me is to spend 5 minutes for every 30 minutes conjuring up an imaginary teacher/parent figure in your mind. During this 5 minutes have a internal mental discussion with this imaginary person about how you are feeling about the work, whether you should stop, what is expected of you etc.

You have to do this regularly throughout your routine (which is why I suggested every 30 minutes) otherwise you will forget the teacher figure is there and lose motivation.

Even though the figure is purely imaginary this technique works surprisingly well for me.

I actually have done this sometimes on and off. That is a good suggestion!

Having routines is how I manage to keep up in an NT world. Once I have a routine I can perform the tasks almost as fast as an NT (it's a big part of how I keep up my disguise). But give me a unique task and I will have to go very slowly, carefully thinking about each step, or I will screw up.
As part of my routine I keep a list of non-routine things that need doing that I check whenever I'm not sure what to do next. I would have a very hard time keeping up with out it

Ah, but if anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed accompanies this routine struggle, if someone's counting on me it just makes the whole thing worse. And a hell of a lot worse when I do fail to do that thing.

I know it helps to work alongside someone else a lot for me though...there's an atmosphere of business that can totally help me. Heck, even if it's just to have someone around then at least I can possible stave off boredom by talking to them.



That's quite interesting. I'm not all that great with that much imagination, putting myself in such a scenario with an entirely fictitious person though, so this approach will probably fail me. If it needs to be someone who motivates me already I suppose, something that has a touch of reality to it...I guess I can bring someone to mind. In fact, I realize that I've already done this before to motivate me recently...and it caused other issues in my life doing so, but that's something else entirely.

In fact I could see that if my imagination were better in general I would be a lot happier of a person and might not even have this issue at all!

I need structure and routine in my life. Since moving out my parents house three years ago I've kept up a pretty good set of routines but now it seems since I have lost my job last year things have changed. I hate that I have lost my work routine. Plus now I have fewer chances to communicate with people since I am not good with making new friends. Sigh it's really hard for me to create new routines.

I trully beleive that I do, but I don't. If it wasnt for my wife I'd be a mess. She will be gone for 4-5 days next week and while I will enjoy some time by myself, I know my stress level will be higher after 2 days.

My entire life is about structure.