to ask you to give me a kick up the bum?

[vinobell]

I've recently reduced my hours to 3 days a week (previously did 60hrs + and needed to reduce due to stress/exhaustion). i had all these lovely ideas about how i would use my days off and I'm just wasting them. its making me feel guilty, bored, frustrated and awful and i need to change it.

I've spend most of the last 2 days on the sofa watching tv and cuddling the dog (he does get an hour walk aswell). don't have any DCs currently and most of my friends work....

anything i think of i just feel too lazy, too tired, can't be bothered.

what should i do with my time? what would you do? anyone been here before and sorted themselves out? first world problem i know - Soz!

You've just gone from 60 hours a week to 30 which is still a full time job - cut yourself some slack and enjoy staying indoors and watching TV. A few weeks of this if this is what you want to do is amazing.

What do you like doing? What were your plans before you became unmotivated?

I think you’re due a bit of down time tbh! Enjoy it.

Relax, take your time having breakfast, walking the dog in new places, pack a picnic and spend the day in a new place with your dog, have day time baths.

You’ll find after a period of that you’ll naturally gravitate towards hobbies or volunteering or a regular routine of doing things.

they are very kind responses for AIBU honestly i don't know, i feel like I've lost motivation for all the things i used to enjoy so maybe it is just needing some downtime - altho i reduced my hours about 5-6 weeks ago so have had quite a bit of downtime now!

i need to start exercising again but i am definitely being lazy about that. it doesn't help that DH works about 90 hour weeks so i feel a bit guilty (altho i am pulling my weight with the house and no financial pressure/ i earn more than him). so not much point cooking/baking as there is no one to eat the food! and CBA with all the shit jobs like wallpaper scraping that need doing!

I went through a similar thing a few years ago after almost burning out. Don't feel bad about having some down time, you probably need it. Once the novelty of time to yourself wears off you'll start doing more. Enjoy your cuddles with the dog while you have the opportunity.

Do you have a reading list? That's what I would do!

I find that if the TV is on I will sit down on the sofa and have tea and then just.not.move! On the days I don’t turn the TV on in the morning I am far more motivated to do things. The TV is like a brain deactivator. It switches everything off and you go into zombie mode. Try making a deal with yourself to leave the TV off until the afternoon or evening.

You had stress and exhaustion? You needed some time out. No kicking here.
Can you plan next week? What do you need to do, what routine tasks should you be doing and what would you enjoy? It’s easy to slip into a kind of inertia watching TV etc (Looking at you Amazon Prime! )

yes i definitely burnt out - probably over 2-3 years ago - but had to keep going as i had no chance for a break. this summer i had 3 weeks off before going to 3 days, and i guess i expected to feel 'better'? I'm not a lazy person - usually very motivated and i think thats why I'm beating myself up. I'm a bit down that I'm not feeling up to things yet...and my biggest worry is that i never will be. and maybe thats why I'm trying to force myself into being active as i hate the thought that "this is now me?". if that makes sense. i don't want this to be who i am now!

have no motivation of reading at all - my job is quite intense and I've had to do a lot of study over the last 10 years so I've lost all passion for it!

Really good point about leaving the tv off - may try that but have no idea what to fill my morning with! thanks for the kind comments, it helps x

Don’t worry, you’ll soon find yourself doing things you haven’t even thought of once the Tv is off. Honestly, it’s does something magic to your brain.

A similar thing happened to me last year. I’d had also had a very stressful job with long hours. When I dropped my hours I expected to do so many other things.
I spent about 6 months feeling like you do now. Sleeping maybe up to 14 hours a day, unable to get going or do anything constructive and feeling guilty.
It slowly lifted after about 6 months and now, a year on, I am almost back to full energy and bounce, sleeping normally and doing all the jobs, cleaning, decorating and even some voluntary work. I feel almost ready to do what I wanted to do a year ago!
I obviously needed the time to recover from the stress that I didn’t realise I was suffering from.
Stop feeling guilty, allow yourself to recover (keep up the long walks with the dog!). I suspect after working 60 hours plus a week your body and mind need some downtime to recover and adjust to a more standard workload.

You can go for a walk, be it town or a rural area, depending where you live. Or knit something for a charity, if you like knitting/know how to.
Or listen to a podcast, it can be anyhting: book reviews, historical stuff. It depends on what you like.

But if you are really tired then maybe you just need time of pure boredom and doing nothing. Once you recover, you'll get some ideas.