Adulting limits? Responsibility fatigue?

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  • Bjane01
    Bjane01 Posts: 23 Member
    I've found that I have to exercise. It gives me a lot of energy and mental focus. When I don't get my heart rate up for several days or a week, I can feel myself getting sluggish and more scattered. I just want to sit on the couch and eat! Also, I used to think I had no time to do stuff. But when I started exercising and watching my calories, I found I was spending less and less time on my phone. I am now down to maybe 30 minutes a day doing emails & facebook. It is actually a huge time saver!
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    edited September 2019
    Bjane01 wrote: »
    I've found that I have to exercise. It gives me a lot of energy and mental focus. When I don't get my heart rate up for several days or a week, I can feel myself getting sluggish and more scattered. I just want to sit on the couch and eat! Also, I used to think I had no time to do stuff. But when I started exercising and watching my calories, I found I was spending less and less time on my phone. I am now down to maybe 30 minutes a day doing emails & facebook. It is actually a huge time saver!

    I had to get off the phone games for sure. I didn't realize just how much time I was spending on them, even though I was "only" spending 15 minutes or so on each. I kept my favorite and let the rest go, and earned a surprising amount of time. Now, if only I could cut down a little on my youtube watching and go read a book instead, lol.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    Bjane01 wrote: »
    I've found that I have to exercise. It gives me a lot of energy and mental focus. When I don't get my heart rate up for several days or a week, I can feel myself getting sluggish and more scattered. I just want to sit on the couch and eat! Also, I used to think I had no time to do stuff. But when I started exercising and watching my calories, I found I was spending less and less time on my phone. I am now down to maybe 30 minutes a day doing emails & facebook. It is actually a huge time saver!

    I had to get off the phone games for sure. I didn't realize just how much time I was spending on them, even though I was "only" spending 15 minutes or so on each. I kept my favorite and let the rest go, and earned a surprising amount of time. Now, if only I could cut down a little on my youtube watching and go read a book instead, lol.

    I did this in the past few months by unsubscribing to a few YouTubers I wasn't honestly that into, and then making a special point of sitting down 1-2 times a week to catch up on YouTube videos. Previously I'd set aside time just about daily & then wound up wasting a couple hours almost daily.

    As for the book reading, I always tell myself it's quality time away from a screen and blue light. Because I have some minor eye issues that's encouragement enough!
  • peachvine29
    peachvine29 Posts: 400 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    I find it helps me a lot to reframe my duties as choices. “I need to clean the kitchen, food prep breakfast for the next few days, and then go lift weights,” makes me want to throw myself off a high place. “I get to make delicious food, enjoy my lovely kitchen, and then go find out if I can set a PR on deadlifts,” is much better. However, it only works when the stuff you do really does have an upside - if you sort of hate your kitchen even when it’s clean, your food is boring, and you hate what you do to work out, it doesn’t work so well. It’s worth it investing just a little extra to make sure the things you do every day are as enjoyable as they can be. When I started my weight loss journey, I informed my husband that I hated my kitchen and I hated being in it and we were going to redo the kitchen. It didn’t take much time or money but now it’s one of my favorite places to spend time.

    To some degree you can even use this technique with tasks you dislike - I don’t imagine anyone really gets a charge out of scooping litter. But it helps to remember that even a task like that IS A CHOICE - some poor unfortunate souls choose not to scoop the litter and as a result they live in filth. Or even worse they choose not to have cats!

    I love this! Super insightful. Will be applying to my life. Thanks for the tips!
  • spidergoat
    spidergoat Posts: 5 Member
    pinuplove wrote: »
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    I have a big problem with this, to the point where I can definitely start neglecting important parts of responsibility (like paying bills and cleaning my cat's litterbox daily) because I'm just so tired of it all. Right now I'm practicing rewarding myself for "regular" responsibilities like making my bed. I use Habitica so I get a small amount of "coins" for each completed habit and then I can "spend" them on rewards when I've saved up enough.

    I'm also working on trying to follow an 80% rule to combat perfectionism. I remind myself that getting 80% of the way there takes a minuscule amount of time compared to trying to get 100% of the way there. Things like sweeping the kitchen floor but not mopping. Sweeping makes it look way better and even though it isn't perfect, chances are no one is going to notice the 20% missing. So, I always sweep, and only mop if I'm in the mood. I will usually be in the mood often enough, but if I'm not, it won't become a insurmountable problem because sweeping keeps it nice enough to extend times between mopping. If I had to both sweep and mop every time, I'm more likely to do neither because of the dread.

    I could have written this post (go figure!) Right down to scooping the litterbox and sweeping but not mopping.

    I also feel like my tolerance for "busy-ness" is low. I'm an introvert. It takes significant stretches of quiet downtime for me to even begin to recharge, which is very inconvenient for someone with a full-time job, spouse, children, pets, etc. I try to appreciate to busy days, knowing someday they'll be gone, but it doesn't keep me from wishing for a week straight where I don't have to talk to anyone :tongue:

    I can *completely* identify with having a low threshhold for "busy-ness"! I have to recharge so frequently and so much to be effective in any part of my life. I'm not working full-time right now, just doing a ten-hour/week internship, but even so I have to divide it over most of the week, and I have all the other typical responsibilities as well. DH helps a lot with our child and the house and errands, but pretty much the only thing I *always* have time for is being with my child and helping them with whatever they need. I know that exercise and healthy eating helps a great deal with my ability to recharge, but it's so hard to do it when I'm already worn down by daily life.

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