Loftwings and Demons

 I think it helps me do things if I make more specific plans than just 'work on X task'.  Also if I make these specific plans in advance of performing them.  For example, instead of thinking 'I should make food now' which often just ends in me eating preprepared foods, leftovers, or snacks I don't have to cook, if I think 'I'm going to make tortillas', it's easier for me to actually do the task.  Also, if I break the task up into steps like 'first I need to get a bowl' and work on each of those tasks one at a time it's easier for me.  Also easier if I can work on part of a task one day and continue it later, for example 'I'll mix the dry ingredients together now and continue tomorrow'.

Time management is definitely not my strong suit.  Though I have had my recent health issue on my mind quite a lot of late.  This year brought with it a new and mysterious health issue for me which I am currently seeing a doctor to try to hopefully get some sort of diagnosis and treatment.  In the meantime the good news is that I appear to have hit upon something that's substantially reduced the pain it's been causing me from 'agonizing' to 'transient annoyance', so that's something at least. 

Though I don't know which of the things I'm doing caused the drastic pain reduction, so now I just have to keep doing all of them and hope that keeps things manageable.  I suppose it could also be a weird fluke and none of them are affecting that at all, but since my current interventions have been 1.) better sleep habits, 2.) exercise more and 3.) get more nutrients, it's probably a good idea to keep them up anyway.

If any or all of those things are actually helping, they've been more effective than ginger tea, ibuprofen, acetiminophen, or the last two of those in combination, all of which do reduce the pain and which I'd previously been using to manage it.

I have done a task!  Can I do...another task?  Can I...log into a website? Click a few buttons?  Or will I spend untold hours ruminating over this task?

The Internet is so incredibly helpful and simultaneously so incredibly--the opposite of helpful.  I need to focus my attention on *the task at hand*, not the 5 million other things I can access on demand on the internet. Sometimes I need to be on the internet, but on a very specific part of it.

Right now, this is not the part of the internet I should be on.

I really want to improve my ability to organize my time.  One major issue I have is that if I feel no sense of urgency, I often don't start tasks.  But if I do feel a sense of urgency (as looming deadlines often cause me to feel), it stresses me out a disproportionate amount.  This is why I tend to be very cautious about agreeing to do anything additional to what I am minimally required to do. 

If I don't plan my time out, it decreases how constrained and stressed I feel, but at the cost of me being able to accomplish goals.  If I do plan my time out, it increases how many goals I accomplish but at the cost of additional stress and strain.  It's a constant balancing act between either  complete aimlessness or utter burnout, and I just wish I knew how I could...improve that.

Alas, my time management skills lacking. Guess I'll just play some more SWTOR.