To Have Terrible Time Management Skills

[Kittenbittenmitten]

Fairly regular poster. Changed name, it's obviously not a particularly "outing" post but I feel embarrassed.
DC has started nursery two full days a week and I thought "this is it." I aimed to be a master of productivity and that hasn't really happened. I just feel like the day goes so fast. I'm trying to do a part time course and while I'm getting some done, I'm not really doing the amount I ambitiously anticipated.
My house is so messy though I do keep on top of the cleaning just about, I always have clean clothes for DC so it can't be that bad but I don't feel that everything has its place yet and it makes me feel anxious and stressed. I've loads of projects I've yet to finish. I procrastinate on life admin. I was getting really good at reading novels again but now I'm finding I spend any spare minute on my phone. I get worried if I have to spend some of the day shopping or socialising or going to appointments because it splits the day up and after coffee with a friend or food shopping, it takes me a good while to get back into studying zone.
This weekend I didn't do anything apart from go to work do some cooking, ironing and laundry. My DH obviously pitches in at the weekend but I didn't read or study or anything even a TV programme. That depresses me.

I'm not a total disaster, I don't miss appointments or let important admin/ payment deadlines pass me by. I cook from scratch and prepare it before I pick up DC. I write down to-do lists but achieve barely anything. I'm not like this at work. I'm methodical and organised but at home my mind feels like it's in chaos.

Does anyone else feel like this?

Marie Kondo is good technique for decluttering. If you have less stuff, it's easier to keep on top of it

Cleaning - little and often

If something is quick to do, just get on and do it. Don't add it to a list of things to do later

www.nowdothis.com/ is good for making lists and checking them off

And don't be too hard on yourself

Thank you for your reply.
I have the Marie Kondo book but have yet to read it properly. I will check out the website you recommended.

Online shop for food, click & collect is free if you don't want delivery charge. Make the two days you have DD at nursery sacrosanct, study only, no shopping, no appts or Internet. For other tidying stuff make sure toys have a plastic crate they go into when not in use. Toys that haven't been played with in a year go to charity shop. Large bulky toys like scooters etc stay outside. Make sure you have hooks on the back of doors for things like dressing gowns & shoes & school bags hung up/only placed by the front door, not left anywhere else. (saves so much morning hassle)

Can’t recommend The Organised Mum Method enough. Sounds awful but is brilliant (for some, including me). She has a new book out but has free, very simple printables on her website. It’s really helped me over the last year or two as I’ve become a single parent and started a new job and ha a lot to juggle.

To answer your question, yes I feel like this too, have done all my life. We are made to feel like a square peg in a round hole by the super organisers.

Thanks CSIblonde. I have been thinking I will need to do that or at least banning myself from anything until I get at least a few hours of studying done.

Will check OMM, have heard lots of good things about her.

Familycourtq. I know what I should be doing but it's like I'm terrible with large chunks of time. There's always later and suddenly I've achieved nothing! At uni my grades were better if I had a part time job rather than no job but then if I have too much to do I go into meltdown. It's a very fine line. I think as a mostly SAHM I don't have the pressure of deadlines and no one to tell me off if I don't do my stuff.

When you say your dh 'pitches in at the weekend' that is a big part of the problem. He lives in the house too, you both work whether you do more childcare or not, you need to split the cooking and cleaning. If you DO do the organised mum method, do it together after the kids are in bed or just generally split jobs 50-50 anything else is unfair. Also have a look at the batch lady.

Oh I thought earlier you said you worked also? Anyway, dh should still be helping during the week imo. If the two of you did the organised mum method level 2 jobs when the kids are in bed you'd get done in half the time, it'd be 15 mins each which is nothing!

Yes I do work. Very minimally though for now. Just at the weekends. DH isn't the most domesticated man but he works and studies full-time. He gets DC ready for bed a lot, packs dishwasher, goes to shops and usually takes DC out somewhere at weekend. I'd feel guilty asking him to do much more when I have two completely child-free days a week.

Try the pomodoro technique says me sitting down with a cup of tea whilst being on MN and having a kitten on my lap

I think you have to be very specific on your time plan. E.g. One day designated to the part time course and the rest to do all the other jobs. Or on Tuesday I will tackle project 'A'. Obviously prioritise which is most important. If your ahead in the course then you can say this week I'll have a day/afternoon off. Even in this plan you need to give yourself some downtime, I find even meeting friends isn't downtime and like you say takes time to then get in the right frame of mind for studying.

I'm in a similar position, I am doing a quite a heavy course through work, and I work at least 2 1/2 days a week. Also a terrible procrastinator, my course has monthly deadlines set which is enough to keep me on track, but I do have to prioritise my time.

I'd always been a procrastinator and had terrible time management skills until I became happy in certain areas of my life. It was only when I reached that certain amount of happiness that I actually /wanted/ to organise my life.

Now I've had DS, things have been harder to organise so I went backwards before I got back into the swing of things.

I have to add an extra 30-45 mins on to get out of the house on time. I do whatever prep I can the night before to make it smoother. I try and run through in my head what I've got to get done the night before.

I use TOMM to keep the house clean. It's great.

For me, the biggest kick up the ass was losing a friend over my terrible time keeping (and rightly so). I won't go into too much detail but we were supposed to be meeting up for coffee, she had no signal and I was an hour late!!! She tore into me. She said 'The most precious thing someone can give you is their time. You can't give it back'.

It has stuck with me this day. I hate being late now and I always remember her words.

Have you ever looked at the symptom list for inattentive ADHD? The most common struggle is time management, procrastination and disorganisaion. You do not need to be hyperactive; most women aren't, neither are most people with this profile.

I didn't know there were two kinds of ADHD but being diagnosed changed my life.

OP, I too am an incredible procrastinator.

The only thing that's helped me is setting time limits. I'll give myself til say 10am to sit on the sofa, play on my phone, generally slob out. Then I'll get to my do do list and give myself a time limit, say 2pm depending on how much is on it. Then I return to the sofa and rejoice.

At uni my grades were better if I had a part time job rather than no job but then if I have too much to do I go into meltdown.

I'm no expert but people have suggested that I am. Tend to not have too much stuff so it's easy to get tidy and stay tidy. All jobs are done as I go/as I notice something needs to happen so I don't have whole days dedicated to catching up with stuff. I work but also have lots of free time for hobbies, family stuff etc but house quite big (4 bed detached) I also don't carry my phone around as it's easy to get side tracked. Rubbish thrown away/charity shopped straight away so there's no moving stuff from place to place.

At uni my grades were better if I had a part time job rather than no job but then if I have too much to do I go into meltdown.

At uni my grades were consistently better for work I did after returning from the bar after a skin full. I have not applied this to later life as it's a bit impractical.

I hate that I have spent a lot of my life being put down for being disorganised and having poor time management when I am in reality a normal fully functional human who just doesn't do things the same way as some other people.

I’m useless at life admin.

I struggle with organisation to the point where it makes my life difficult.

I am however very good in a crisis and thinking quickly when challenged.

I think our brains adapt in different ways.

It’s stressful AF being so useless - but I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Mecca. Don't put yourself down, life admin is soo boring. It hurts my head and my heart to sit down to do it
I had written a long reply addressing each poster but DC wiped my response.
I did actually read a thread about ADHD in adult women the other day and so much of it rang a bell. I'm not really forgetful though. I know what I should be doing and it stresses me out. Easily distracted though and I've always been awful at delaying gratification. I'm a bit of a hedonist.

I'm grateful for everyone's responses.

Not everyone has every symptom though. Forgetfulness is sometimes something that goes along with the other stuff but usually it's not so much forgetting things as knowing about them but not actually doing them. (I am very forgetful myself though).

Mecca you are another one who fits the ADHD profile. My doctor even said that to me - about being fantastic in a crisis but terrible at things like putting the bins out.

Our brains do work in a different way and it's less stressful when you know as much as possble what you can do to work with your alternative brain rather than trying to fight against it all the time.

Yes 100% I am like this and I honestly don’t know why.

It was so depressing moving house. It took me ages to put everything away and I've still got little bags of shit because I don't want to pollute the environment by chucking it in a landfill. I do obviously donate what I can.

You sound just like me, OP. When I worked full time, I was pretty efficient. Plus I'm a teacher, so was used to having my life governed by timetables and bells. Not getting work done was not an option! When I am PT I am bad at organising my own time.
Two things have helped me - Bullet Journal and an app called 'Now Do This', which I use when I have a long to do list and no motivation.

My remaining obstacle is my phone though. I sometimes think I should get a non-smartphone! I have phases of mistly weaning myself off it, but it never lasts.

Lazylinguist. Your last paragraph is so me. I have a bullet journal Recently my use of it has been more sporadic. I did this test www.additudemag.com/self-test-adhd-symptoms-women-girls/src=test.
Woman on here and other sites talk about going PT or SAHM and they're like... I feel so much more in control now and much less stressed. DH loves coming home to a hot meal and clean and tidy house. Er well that's not me. I wash my husband's clothes and manage a hot meal. I put away his underwear and DS's clothes but that's it. I do have bursts of activity where I might wash, dry, iron or fold and put away but it sits in an unsightly pile for far too long.

Yesterday I got really stressed because someone else asked to meet up as well. I don't have a problem being assertive but the offer was tempting and I declined because of the ALL THE THINGS I needed to do. As usual I did some of things but not all the things.

It doesn't make a difference if I decline or attend a social occasion. If I decline the invitation I do some of the work but no where near the amount I anticipated. If I go to it, I want to go home because I'm feeling guilty about relaxing.