Sidenote: I wrote this on my ‘days off’ from the internet, so I’ve had a bit of time to think about everything and I’m not quite as riled up as I was when I first put these thoughts down on paper (literally paper.)
I feel like all I do is complain recently, so I’m sorry if that’s come across in any of my writes (although I do my best to put a positive spin on things, right?)
Today I want to talk about my huge struggle with time management. Reason being; less time online and more time in real life is, by all accounts, good.
Yes, in theory and when there’s actually something to do in real life, fantastic. Getting myself involved in day-to-day life can only be a positive.
However, when there’s quite literally nothing to do (and I don’t mean just the ‘fun’ things my brain actually wants to do) it’s boring. So boring. And as someone who feels like absolute shite when she’s bored, staying offline really doesn’t help my overall mood.
It’s been suggested to me now that the time I spend online is starting to become harmful. Apparently being online as much as I have been is now having a negative effect on my mental health.
I disagreed when writing this. I thought, if anything, I’ve been feeling a lot better in myself since starting this journey. Getting all the random thoughts and feelings out of my head and in to the world has freed up space for more to be processed and, as a result, I feel like I’m sleeping a lot better too. Fewer thoughts at night = better sleep. Yes?
Apparently not. My housemate knows me inside and out and has noticed that being online so much results in me ‘switching off’ from life completely. It’s not the same as an ADHD zone-out, it’s a full on shut-down. Whether it’s when I’m sat at the PC for too long — or an hour after a day-long session scrolling through Twitter/Medium etc. — it leaves me unable to function when I’m ‘back in the room’. It leaves me unable to interact with real-life people and basically leaves him alone of an evening because I’m not really there.
We chose to live together so we could support each other with our various physical and mental health conditions. If I’m shut down most evenings, how can I ensure I’m supporting him as much as he supports me? It was food for thought.
My original write had a big paragraph about how much I disagreed — it was full of snide comments that I’m embarrassed to have read in the cold light of day (aka when the bad mood wore off) — and completely proved his point about too much screen-time, amongst other things. I’m so glad I chose to write Short(ish) and Sweet instead of what I’d hastily hand-written in a 30-minute ‘rage’ at the idea of being told to stop going online all the time.
I won’t be sharing all of what I wrote because it really isn’t how I feel about the situation now — but it brought home to me the fact that emotional dysregulation really is something that affects me in more ways than I thought. It doesn’t just make me overly happy or overly sad. It also makes me overly angry over nothing at all (okay that’s enough of the word ‘over’ now 😂)
Anyway: it got me thinking about the work/life balance argument that everybody has at some point in their life. Although this isn’t technically ‘work’ it’s time spent away from everyday life and the balancing act is a struggle for me. I know this now and my hand-written rant confirmed to me that my ADHD brain really doesn’t like being told what to do, or being told to do something it perceives as ‘boring’.
I actually thought to myself, upon being confronted with this idea that I’m spending too much time online, ‘fine, I’ll never go online ever again, then!’ It really is a little tantrumming toddler sometimes. Damn! (Bonus points: I didn’t say it out loud. Which, this time last month, I would have. A little tick in the ‘spend time online sharing your feelings’ column, please!)
It’s like I want to do all the fun things, without the ‘restrictions’ a good and healthy mind set brings. And that’s not good at all, is it. I wrote that I was still frustrated, even though I understood why this had been brought to my attention, and that I’d go stir-crazy if I couldn’t log on every day and write, and scroll, and take myself away from reality. I wrote that maybe that was the point of being told.
It was. It was exactly the point. Because now it’s 2 days later and I feel completely differently about the topic. It’s been nice not logging on first thing. I’ve been spending more time playing with the cats, I’ve done some laundry, tidied and cleaned the house and even started to improve a little bit on Fortnite (shock, I know!) I realise Fortnite is technically ‘online time’ but it’s not aimless-scrolling-with-nothing-really-in-mind online time.
I shouldn’t feel like I’m going to be bored out of my mind if I’m not on the PC all day and thankfully I don’t feel that way any more. Yes, my brain still niggles at me every now and again, telling me I’m missing out because I’m not interacting or engaging with the people I’ve been so keen to keep up with since starting this blog. But that’s okay — because I know I can still engage when I do go online. There’s no time-limit to responding to comments and I shouldn’t allow my brain to convince me that my time is not my own to spend it as I wish.
It’s the same with text/direct messages — I used to think that an instant response was the best response. Reply straight away, don’t delay! But that’s not right either. Nobody should be able to insert themselves in to my life and demand my attention immediately. It’s not what most people do, of course, but it’s how I perceived it. If I got a message from someone I always felt it was my duty to reply straight away or they’d think I didn’t care. (That’s likely the people-pleasing part of me, so I’ll have to put her in time-out if she carries on, haha.)
For me to be able to better manage my time here on Medium, as well as other social apps, I’ll need to start setting alarms. Set myself a screen-time limit each day so that I can better engage with the real people in my life moving forward. I’m not going to come offline completely like toddler-brain wanted to do. No, I’m going to give myself a set number of hours in a day to do the online things and once that time is up, I’m off until the next day, or maybe even the day after that?
As the weather starts to improve here in rainy little Wales, I’ll have more to do in the real world too. I’ll be able to go places, enjoy things, and soak up that much needed sunshine. I’m looking forward to managing my time more effectively and, in doing so, hope to be able to share a lot more in the process — I’ll even have more positive things to write about, other than the constant whirring of negative thoughts and self-talk! That’ll be amazing, won’t it?
Here’s hoping I’ll be able to do it — with the help of my housemate, my best friends and my trusty alarms (which I hope I won’t just end up snoozing/ignoring… A very real possibility seeing as snooze is my favourite button when I have to wake up…) I’m sure I will :)
Until next time,
KD x