Driving myself crazy!

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Do you constantly plan everything??? Such as chores going to do A,B,C,D if I don't plan them step by step I get distracted to do something else then forget to feed the cat or dogs or take them outside or some other cleaning chore. On my Birthday yesterday when the social norm is "relax" "take it easy" I did the A,B,C,D thing and ran around the house cleaning. It's exhausting!! !! Cleaning doesn't come naturally to me and I easily get distracted on a video game or watching a show focusing on my interest rather than do chores chores chores. It drives ME NUTS! Any help with this? Thanks.

I do need to plan structured, detailed "to do" lists to get anything done, yes.

About household chores -- it might help to break them down into different, smaller tasks to be carried out on different days, instead of one mammoth session where you try to get too much done in one day. That can tend to be feel so burdensome that it puts you off the next time you have to tackle it.

Instead, for example, after having done a full-on cleaning so that you start with everything basically ship-shape, you might decide that from now on, every day just before you go to bed at night, give the kitchen surfaces a wipe-down. If you do that quickly on a daily basis, it never gets so bad that the daily wipe is a huge or long task, but instead remains a fast one. Or alternate "quick kitchen wipe-down" one day, and "quick vacuuming of one room" the next.

Breaking the house or apartment down into rooms or areas or sub-tasks, each of which may not take up more than fifteen minutes of work at a time, then assigning those to their own stand-alone day, can help each thing feel very fast, quick and easy so that you almost feel like it's a shame not to stay on that roll and do more -- but resist that, and keep the separate days/tasks so that it never starts to feel like a huge long deal.

If you are planning and memorizing all the steps of each chore every day, that is what is driving you crazy. Write up a list of your regular routine chores and the steps to do them. Make a big chart of the days of the week, and put the chores and their instructions on the days when you do them. Laminate it, and use a felt tip pen to mark off each one after you do it. At the end of the week, erase the marks on the chart, and start over. Or whatever system you want to use (Google calendar reminders on your phone, whatever)--just get the steps and their order out of your memory, into an exterior place where you can relax knowing it's all there for next time.

I make to do lists for chores, but then don't stick to them, as I get involved in things of more interest to me. I have always had a problem doing stuff not of interest to me. My place is a mess because of this. It's frustrating.