How to develop a healthy daily structure

I am working in creating a routine that is accepted by all parts of me.I don't want to be so unstructured as it causes me more and more disappoinments daily.I have no clear idea about how to spend time.But I like to organize everything I tried to develop some basic tasks that i am doing daily and tried to analyse what makes me more stressfull to complete and all
.generally my life is so unstructured and it not good for my recovery I think..
Any experiances about developing a routine?

we dont really have any suggestions but we kinda need this here too

viola

Since we're off the university now, in order to focus more on our therapy, we had to learn how to structure our days and weeks... and it was interesting x) After a lot of trying, we came with this :

First thing we did is listing the basic and vital tasks that need to be done, and when : eating, showering, feeding the cat, going to sleep. When we're in crisis, we sometimes can't do everything, but we really try our best.

Then, the important daily tasks, but not vital - the ones that can be reported if our energy level is too low : doing the dishes, brushing the cat, checking on the websites we're admin on.

After that, there's the weekly tasks : cleaning the apartment, translating/writing an article for one of our website, working on the illustrations and planning a team-meeting for another website, reading "university" books/working on online courses we subscribed at.

And finally, the hobbies of everyone : playing piano, drawing, the coloring book, making origami, etc.

After a lot of trying, we identified how many tasks we were able to do after the vital ones and non-vital ones were done, and organized our week around that. Usually we're able to do three tasks, except when we have an appointment or have to clean the apartment, then it's only one or two (or none, if we're exhausted).

This way, we have created a basic simple structure we can adapt if needed, and each day has its own specific group of activities. We know Monday is entirely about drawing as a hobby and reading, Tuesday is about posting a new article on a website and drawing for the other one, Wednesday is for cleaning the apartment, etc. Having different activities depending on what day it is helps a lot with our poor sense of time.

One thing we're still learning is to stick by our list and not do too many things when we have a higher energy level, to not exhaust ourselves.

Doing a bullet journal can really help to set a daily/weekly/monthly routine. The advantage of it is as you write everything, you can see what's working, what's not working and adapt the routine you're trying to settle. The key is to listen to yourself and not try too much to force a routine that doesn't work.

You can also search for "mental health" or "therapeutic" bullet journal, to find ideas on how tracking symptoms, energy level, mood, habits, and a lot of others things.

Two things to note :
-> It can take a lot of time before the bullet journal become a habit. It took us two years before everyone in the system get used to it. It's normal, the important thing is to not let down !

-> You will not always be able to meet every expectation you set. The bullet journal shouldn't be a way to make you feel bad about yourself, you need to learn to be gentle with yourself, and to be real about what you can do, in order to not feel guilty or ashamed. If you can't do everything you wanted during the day, it's not a bad thing. See how to plan your expectation during the week, or the month is a week isn't enough. If the bullet journal makes you anxious, feel under pressure, etc. maybe you should talk about it with your T.

Dwelt wrote:Since we're off the university now, in order to focus more on our therapy, we had to learn how to structure our days and weeks... and it was interesting x) After a lot of trying, we came with this :

First thing we did is listing the basic and vital tasks that need to be done, and when : eating, showering, feeding the cat, going to sleep. When we're in crisis, we sometimes can't do everything, but we really try our best.

Then, the important daily tasks, but not vital - the ones that can be reported if our energy level is too low : doing the dishes, brushing the cat, checking on the websites we're admin on.

After that, there's the weekly tasks : cleaning the apartment, translating/writing an article for one of our website, working on the illustrations and planning a team-meeting for another website, reading "university" books/working on online courses we subscribed at.

And finally, the hobbies of everyone : playing piano, drawing, the coloring book, making origami, etc.

After a lot of trying, we identified how many tasks we were able to do after the vital ones and non-vital ones were done, and organized our week around that. Usually we're able to do three tasks, except when we have an appointment or have to clean the apartment, then it's only one or two (or none, if we're exhausted).

This way, we have created a basic simple structure we can adapt if needed, and each day has its own specific group of activities. We know Monday is entirely about drawing as a hobby and reading, Tuesday is about posting a new article on a website and drawing for the other one, Wednesday is for cleaning the apartment, etc. Having different activities depending on what day it is helps a lot with our poor sense of time.

One thing we're still learning is to stick by our list and not do too many things when we have a higher energy level, to not exhaust ourselves.

Doing a bullet journal can really help to set a daily/weekly/monthly routine. The advantage of it is as you write everything, you can see what's working, what's not working and adapt the routine you're trying to settle. The key is to listen to yourself and not try too much to force a routine that doesn't work.

You can also search for "mental health" or "therapeutic" bullet journal, to find ideas on how tracking symptoms, energy level, mood, habits, and a lot of others things.

Two things to note :
-> It can take a lot of time before the bullet journal become a habit. It took us two years before everyone in the system get used to it. It's normal, the important thing is to not let down !

-> You will not always be able to meet every expectation you set. The bullet journal shouldn't be a way to make you feel bad about yourself, you need to learn to be gentle with yourself, and to be real about what you can do, in order to not feel guilty or ashamed. If you can't do everything you wanted during the day, it's not a bad thing. See how to plan your expectation during the week, or the month is a week isn't enough. If the bullet journal makes you anxious, feel under pressure, etc. maybe you should talk about it with your T.

ThAnk you so much ..I gain a lot of insight from this post.

Dwelt had some very good suggestions. When our life is working fairly well, we're using our bullet journal to list what we need to do and remember it.

Two remarkably simple actions we take have huge dividends in getting our day started and our mind energized with an increased ability to focus:
1. drinking two glasses of water when we first wake up, and
2. going for a brisk walk of about 20 minutes in the morning, preferably near trees or something natural or pleasant-looking.

Making sure to eat well, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of plain water over the span of the day, and taking vitamins has always made a big difference too. Avoiding foods that we know make us sleepy or confused helps -- for us, it's wheat and sugar.

Johnny-Jack wrote:Dwelt had some very good suggestions. When our life is working fairly well, we're using our bullet journal to list what we need to do and remember it.

Two remarkably simple actions we take have huge dividends in getting our day started and our mind energized with an increased ability to focus:
1. drinking two glasses of water when we first wake up, and
2. going for a brisk walk of about 20 minutes in the morning, preferably near trees or something natural or pleasant-looking.

Making sure to eat well, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of plain water over the span of the day, and taking vitamins has always made a big difference too. Avoiding foods that we know make us sleepy or confused helps -- for us, it's wheat and sugar.

Thanks for the top brother

We have found having a dog always helped us keep one foot in reality cos they need to be walked twice a day and fed and trained/played with.

If energy levels are low, the dog's needs comes first in our house, then making sure we eat something, sometimes that's all we manage that day! Brush teeth and hair daily but don't always get full shower and hair wash sometimes it takes us all our energy to get up and throw yesterdays clothes on to get out of the door with the dog! (but try and aim for 3 times a week MINIMUM)

If there's any energy to spare we look at if anything is 'urgent' or needs sorting before a certain date in the near future.

If there's a 'going out somewhere' event we try and put a 'rest day' either side (this means doing nothing other than making sure the dog is walked and fed and we've had something to eat) though we also have to fit in a shower and hair wash before at some point!

Housework tends to fall by the wayside and we've been even less motivated to 'waste energy on that' as we've not been allowed visitors in the house due to shielding and lockdown for over a year anyway so no-one's gonna see it if we do clean!!!

Usually someone manages to do laundry and tidy up a bit at some point in the week and get some food in the house!