Developing and Enforcing Routines

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Hiya everyone!

My first post here, so bear with me.

I'm 29 years old and I feel like my life has just completely fallen apart.

When I was at school, the routine of it was great. I knew what I had to be doing, where, and when, and although my organisational skills were terrible, it was all enforced so it worked.

Things fell apart after I left school as I left for bad reasons, and then tried to work, and didn't do very well.

I went to Uni as a mature student a few years ago, but other health problems got in the way (I'm severely physically disabled as well).

Now I'm trying to sort my life out basically, and I'm realising that although I can make myself a timetable for each day, I always miss things out, and I just don't have any enforcement there - no parents / teachers to make me do it.

Thanks to my physical disabilities I also don't get up at the same time each day, which totally wrecks any planned schedule I try to create, and so I just give up and it falls apart.

Routines are hard to get going, but without them I just cannot cope with daily life.
My life has fallen apart as a result - the house is a total mess, and I don't eat properly or bathe enough.
I can't work out how to get it sorted though.
I know I need the routines in place, and then everything will be fine, but how to get back into doing it?

Especially considering my physical disabilities which are very variable, so I don't know from one day to the next whether I'll even be able to get out of bed, let alone go and do the housework I try to schedule.

Any tips and ideas?

I'm not exactly sure how to put this in words coherently, but perhaps you can find some kind of service that helps you stay on top of things? A secretary type of person who is able to provide the structure and "independent motivator" that you need? Just a thought.

The only way to get good at forcing yourself to do something, is to practice.

I would start with something that's not physically demanding, like writing four good sentences in a journal every day, or memorizing a long poem, one stanza at a time, or sitting in a room for five-ten minutes and writing down what's in it until eventually you have a complete list. Make yourself do it every single day, no matter what, especially if you don't feel like it. It sounds a little juvenile, maybe, but it's helped me. After you know you can reliably do what you've scheduled every day, add another thing, like maybe folding one basket of laundry, or washing half the dishes on the counter every day, depending on your health.

Don't feel like you have to make big sweeping goals like "empty out the garage" or "clean the entire kitchen". Ten minutes of tidying up a different area of the house every day of the week would be great, because little things done consistently over time add up. I totally agree with LadyBugQ's reccomendation of a personal assistant or even a close friend coming by to make sure things get done...Accountability is a good thing.

I agree with both posted suggestions. Without the physical problems, you could have been writing for me. I have a tough time since retiring. Although I just found out I have Aspergers about 2 wks. ago, I flounder around the house. I have a caring, generous husband who does not understand my feelings of being 'at sea' without structure or a schedule (even if I elect to blow the schedule, which I feel from time to time is my perrogative).

So much more makes since now (I feel like my 'old' life blew up when I was told I have Aspergers), and maybe now I can structure myself with the help of others. Just some structure ... enough to get through the day and make sure the 'must get dones' are done ... I do enjoy time for myself if I could just learn to not feel so Guilty!

Again, I agree with what's been posted. Good luck!

I'm also in the same situation, having had a kind of breakdown about six months ago thats made me re-evaluate my life and I've basically fallen apart. I am also physically disabled though not severely which confounds the problem I also tried to create a schedule but found it didn't work because it was too ambitious and overwhelming. what is working though is tackling one issue at time.

The first issue is sorting out finances, paying bills etc. This removes a lot of worry cluttering up the brain. Next for me was getting a taxi to a shopping centre once a week to buy decent food and eat properly. The next plan is to tidy up very slowly one step at a time.

So I'm getting there slowly. When I'm ready I will start to create lists and schedules.
Don't be too hard on yourself. I agree that you need a support worker, are you physically able to bathe and do housework? Or is it more organisation that is difficult? Try contacting a charity that advises disabled people how to get access to services if there is one near where you live. You are probably legally entitled to practical help of some kind depending where in the world you are.

Edit; It's just occurred to me that you have a difficult conflict between the aspergian need for routine and sameness each day (over and above the difficulty of imposing it on yourself) and the fact that you have a disability that varies from day to day which makes that type of routine impossible.

A solution could be to develop (slowly) two routines, one for bad days, in which you do the absolute minimum and one for better days when you can do more. Only decide which routine applies on a daily basis depending on how you are. This approach would help me too, as I vary from day to day.

Hope that helps.

Take Care, I hope things get better.

I have the same problem. I get around the getting up too late to follow my schedule by booking any appointments in for the afternoon and by having a morning routine that isn't set to time. By this I mean that I have a list of daily morning tasks to do in a certain order, but they are my 'when I get up' routine.

I have learnt lots through using the Flylady website (linked below). It's a free organisational, motivation website thingy. It starts off by getting you to do one thing every day and than adding one more to your routine each day until you're 'flying'. You get emails from them each day to remind you of what you need to do. I love it.

http://www.flylady.net/index.asp

Could you make up a flexible schedule? Each morning, you could rate your energy level, and pick a more or less challenging version to match your ability to follow through.