Dave the Nomad

This week was a bit of a roller-coaster in terms of mood and energy, and recognizing that is essential in making sure I give myself time to recharge and reset. Overall, though, I'm feeling more engaged with life, which has improved my baseline mood and well-being.

Thanks to @AnokheeTara@ohai.social for the inspiration for some of the sections in this post – and for the inspiration in sharing this regularly!

What went well?

I've been continuing down the ADHD rabbit hole, which has shifted my perspective such that I see my daily structure – my habits, my journal, scheduling my day – as fundamental needs rather than nice to haves. To that end, I scheduled my days every day this week, and that helped me build so much traction on various projects.

I also spent a bunch of time organizing and writing down all of the things I want to be doing – fun projects, hobbies, etc. Getting it all out of my head and into a document from which I can randomly grab tasks on any given day helps so much. Otherwise, I forget about them, and if I don't make the decision in the morning to do something, the likelihood of it happening is painfully low.

I also wrote a bunch this week. I published a post about how to accomplish the important things that somehow keep slipping. I dusted off a decade-old idea for a novel and started re-visiting the outline for it.

What didn't go so well?

I got really frustrated and irritated at work in the first half of the week, mainly from ambiguous and shifting expectations. I also found myself not wanting to deal with and process those feelings. I just wanted to stew in them.

I also had a couple of nights of bad sleep. Thursday night, I woke up at 1am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had a total of about 3 hours of sleep. Friday night, Zoe, my husky pup, had diarrhea, so I was up every 2 hours taking her out. Saturday night was a lot better, though I got to sleep about an hour and a half later than usual and still woke up at my normal time.

What did I learn this week?

I'm learning that structure and planning are essential needs for me. My sense of well-being depends on it. I'm also learning that I need to have clear expectations at work, and I need to ask for that or find healthier ways to cope with shifting expectations in situations where it's necessary.

I'm also learning that I still react to many things in my life, usually by just getting grumpy and shutting down and avoiding, when instead I could be responding. That requires being more mindful of a given situation, of my feelings, and choosing to respond instead of reacting.

What am I curious about?

I continue to be very curious about ADHD and how the coping strategies of others will work for me. I'm excited and hopeful that by giving myself enough variation and a list of things to choose from, I can keep myself engaged and thus feeling pretty well.

What's bringing me joy?

Making progress on my various projects! I did some work on my RV home automation/remote control project, in which I'm building the ability for us to adjust climate controls and even start/stop our generator remotely. This is really important to us, because sometimes we leave the dogs at home, and if we forget to turn on the A/C – or if there's a power outage – it can get incredibly hot. The remote control allows us to get notified if the power goes out, and start the generator + A/C from where ever we are.

What are my intentions for next week?

Next week, I would like to be more mindful of how I react vs. respond to situations in my life, and work on nudging myself towards responding. I will also continue planning my days, because that's really working out well for me. I'm bumping my daily word count goal to 400 words per day. We'll see how that goes. Experimentation without judgment!

#Reflection #SelfCare #PersonalGrowth #AmWriting #Mindfulness