Hi D-Cindy,
In my latest business incarnation, I am a self-employed entrepeneur and work from home (6 years now, that’s the longest I’ve ever stuck with any job), but I’ve just taken a big step and rented commercial space (6 mos lease, I’m not good with commitments and responsibility so I was reluctant to extend it). Having had so many jobs and being “older”, I really want to make this job work. Besides, I’m really creative and skilled in many aspects, and it’s not a boring job (just some parts – you know, get others to do those bits). And it’s exciting to see my business grow.
Our house was being taken over by the business and we literally couldn’t move around (or sell and move). Working from home can be really distracting and hard on relationships, since it’s hard to separate work and play (although as a classic workaholic I rarely played, except surfing on computer, which was an addiction). So my day would start at 8, loaf on the computer (like I’m doing now, in order to “wake up” for the day), my husband would get up at 10, he’d want lunch (I would only have finished breakfast) and then I wouldn’t really get started until 2 or 3 pm and I’d have to work way into the evening to catch up. He would complain we had no time together and I was always working (not true, always procrastinating and falling behind). So I have some behavioural change to work on. Hopefully going somewhere else to work and then physically coming home for dinner will start to create some new positive habits.
I am a big believer in writing stuff down on lists so I don’t think about it in bed, but I do make a lot of lists, too much stuff to keep track of. I have trouble paring it down, to do just what is essential. If I get too much on my list, I really start to spin my gears and you can see it, I’ll circle from one room to the next, almost paralyzed, not knowing where to start but knowing I really need to get started FAST. Totally spinning my gears.
I am going to dig out my old Daytimer portfolio and see if that might work for me. I have been using large whiteboards and they’re good for me since I can erase and re-write (bit of a perfectionist here, OK A LOT), and also I like to visually see things. My photo here pretty much looks like my desk, I have a netbook/laptop and another computer monitor behind it that’s full of post-it notes. But the whiteboard thing is helping, write stuff down and erase and move the other stuff up as you start to go through it. Have to resist the urge to get more and decorate the house with them!
You say you never worked at any job long enough to get fired or bored, that explains a lot for me. I also never got fired, I quit a few jobs, but I always had another job to go to (I guess I knew somehow that the job wasn’t working out for me, often personality clashes or resistance to authority, which is a pattern for me).
I’m feeling a lot better this week, I am on Ritalin (husband’s meds) and I’ve had four good nights of sleep. Last night I slept all the way through. I’m waking a bit earlier than I used to, but at least I’m not as tired.
One tip from my therapist (he can’t diagnose or prescribe ADD meds), if I had six things on the list (way more, usually), he told me to do only three. And I was supposed to stop after completing one item and see how I felt before going on to the next. Since I’m a hyperactive compulsive type of person, I would rush from one to the next and never really realize that my body was telling me TOO MUCH! TOO FAST! SLOW DOWN! until it was way too late! I don’t that practice but I am a lot more aware of the fact that I try to get a gazillion things done in a day and even a superhuman has their limits! 