Living with CFS / ME is frustrating on many, many levels.
But one of the things I find most frustrating is when my housework gets out of hand, my house is a mess, and I feel totally overwhelmed about how to get it back into a workable state.
I’m feeling that way today because I, rather foolishly in hindsight, decided to have a Tupperware party tonight in an attempt to have a social life.
I actually was a Tupperware demonstrator for 6 1/2 years, so when my former manager was hosting a party for another Tupper-friend, I was very much looking forward to going.
Alas, having been going pretty well with my health (relatively speaking) lately, I managed to get my first cold in 6 months and felt my worst on the night of my friend’s party.
So in an attempt to actually see my two friends, I decided to book my own party – seeing it as an opportunity to also invite my other friends who I rarely see, and getting it all over in a few hours of time and energy.
My attempt at having a social life offline 😉
Hmmm!
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I forgot it was the middle of ME / CFS Awareness Week, I then started the #ThisIsME blog chain, AND I decided to attempt 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – daily blogs for the whole of May.
“Pacing?” you ask. “Not as much as I could be”, I answer sheepishly.
I truly am pacing. I have a mid-afternoon nap, an hour bath in the early evening, do yoga and meditation in amongst it all, but still … yeah, I know. Classic Type A personality taking over. :-/
Anyway, in the process of all this, my house has got a bit out of control, and I’m having friends over tonight.
Cue panic. Cue overwhelm. Cue just wanting to curl up in a corner, put my hands over my ears and chant “Rhubarb”!
But I’ve decided all these things are not going to help.
What will help are the following strategies I employ in these circumstances – or at other times when I just need to do a task that I either don’t want to do or feel is beyond my physical abilities.
5 Ways To Beat Overwhelm & Get Tasks Done
1. Stay In The Present
What we have a tendency to do when we’re faced with an overwhelming task is to look too far ahead.
We look at ALL that has to be done and we panic, get overwhelmed, and often just opt to do nothing.
Staying in the present helps with this.
Just focussing on one action at a time, one step at a time, one moment at a time.
So I’ll look at my messy kitchen, take a deep breath to calm the overwhelm of how long I think it’ll take and how much energy I think it’ll use up to clean it, and I do the following …
I just look for one thing I could do straight away that’s quick and easy. And I do it.
Is there something that is obviously rubbish that I could put in the bin?
Is there something that belongs in the pantry that I could put away now?
Can I just fill the sink with soapy water and put some dishes in to start soaking?
By starting to take actions in the present moment, and trying not to look too far ahead at all the other things that need doing, I stay calmer, and before I know it, I have a small area clean.
Then I just keep doing small things until the big thing is done – stopping at intervals appropriate to my health levels, resting, and continuing on.
It’s kind of like (if you remember these times), when you were healthy and needed to walk up a very steep hill or just walk a long way.
I learned back then, not to look up at the hill or the long road, but to look down at my feet and just literally put one foot in front of the other.
2. Trick Yourself
What?! “How can I trick myself?”
I got this tip years ago from a time mastery course.
The idea is, rather than completely put off a task that you are procrastinating on or that you just don’t want to do – or in the CFS / ME person’s case, just don’t have the energy to do, so it’s extra-overwhelming – you just commit to doing a very small amount of time on that task.
So, say you really want to clean up your bedroom, but you know you can’t do it in one go OR it just seems too overwhelming to do in one go?
You say you’re going to just doing 10 minutes of cleaning up, and then stop.
Now this could actually be your limit, depending on your health. It could be 1 minute, depending on the severity of your CFS / ME.
But still try it.
You allocate 10 minutes (health allowing). You set a timer. When the timer goes off, you give yourself permission to stop.
What happens is that you usually break through the resistance by 10-15 minutes, and sometime you find you actually want to do longer.
Or you just think, “oh, well, I’ll just put this last pile of clothes away, then I’ll finish”. (Or you JUST STOP for the day and do another 10 minutes the next day)
I’ve done this many times over the years. Frankly, it’s amazing how many dishes you can get done in 5 minutes. I always marvel at that, and the fact that I’ve put them off!!
And if it’s a larger job, like cleaning out a room, writing an essay for a course you’re doing, writing a blog, or even a book, if you take on doing 15-30 minutes a day on that job, over a week, you’ve done 105-210 minutes of the job.
You will start to see progress – and that will also motivate you, and inspire you to continue.
There is, of course, a risk in this method for people with CFS / ME. If you’re like me, there’s always more you’d like to do, but you also have to listen to your bodies and know when to stop.
I often use this timer technique on weekends when doing housework. I may do a few minutes more after the 15 minute timer goes off, but I know that if I want to do a few lots of 15 minutes over the day, I must stop and rest for 10 minutes or so in between.
Otherwise if I push too far in the first go, I’m ironed out for the day!
When I’m really bad with the CFS / ME, I have to be super careful.
And sometimes I muck up!
It’s a balancing act, but this method does work. And people with mild-medium level ME / CFS could definitely use it.
3. Chunk It Up
This is my term for breaking tasks down into smaller steps and doing them one step at a time, with rests in between.
I break my jobs up into bite-sized, easily digestible chunks that don’t seem as overwhelming as the job as a whole.
I DID mention this in Day 3’s post, but here’s how I do it (not exactly Einstein stuff and you probably already do it!)
I learned and used this technique particularly in the last few years when I’ve had very severe bouts of the CFS / ME (and other things – stomach parasites last year!).
When my dishes have piled up and I’m totally overwhelmed by them – and we hardly have a dish left to eat off – this is what I do.
In my worst times, I’d say “I’m just going to do 10 dishes, then I’m going to sit down”.
(Actually, my first burst of energy was to fill the sink with suds and dishes.)
After 10 dishes, I might find I could quickly do a couple more, but then I sat down. Unlike in #2 Tip above, you’re not trying to trick your mind out of procrastinating.
You’re just trying to get something done that needs doing to keep your life workable.
After 10 dishes (or 12), I’d sit down on the couch and read or relax in whatever way. Then when I felt ready, I’d get up and do 10 more. This process continued until all the dishes were done.
With other jobs, I’d set the timer for 5 minutes, then sit down.
It’s a slower way of getting things done, but it’s amazing how much you can get done this way.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling healthier, I really should employ these methods more because I really think I get more done this way because it also help beat procrastination.
4. Give Up The Perfectionism
Oh, we perfectionists with CFS / ME can get ourselves into trouble, can’t we?
But, as I’ve spoken about on Day 4 and in a previous post on The Curse of Perfectionism, when we try to do things perfectly, we either don’t do them at all (because if we can’t do them “right”, we don’t do them) OR we keep working on them way past our energy reserves, and then we crash.
I am a recovering perfectionist. I understand the thinking. But I also know how self-defeating it can be. I battle it every day – especially when writing these blogs!
But when it comes to keeping our household workable, perfectionism can really get in the road of caring for ourselves, and can often exacerbate our CFS / ME symptoms if we’re not careful.
Luckily I’m more a perfectionist with my writing and other things than I am with my house, but there is still a certain level of pride I have about how I like to present myself and my house.
Tonight is the perfect example.
But I’ve had to look around and ask myself, what is really important to me to get done to have the lounge, kitchen and bathroom workable for my guests, as opposed to looking at every little thing that I’d like to have looking good for my guests.
I need to have space on the seats for them to sit, a clear space on the table for the demonstrator to set up, and the kitchen fairly tidy so the demonstrator can use it and I can make cuppas.
Does that mean my bedroom has to look great too? That’d be nice if it did, but it probably won’t. That’s for another day!
Do I need to vacuum the whole house and wash the floor? Of would vacuuming my lounge and kitchen area be enough? Yes it would.
It’ll be night-time, they won’t notice if my floor has been washed (it’s a great lino that doesn’t show dirt much), and – the clincher – if they are real friends, they won’t care how my house looks anyway. They will be here to see me!
It’s so easy to let our high standards and our pride push us to do more than we physically should. Then we pay for it later!
It’s just not worth it!
5. Improvise
(I find this ironic that I got to this point in my blog – doing bits through the day to try to get it finished – but was too exhausted to finish it! So … I gave up perfectionism, I improvised and decided to post it a day late!)
What I mean by improvise is really totally up to you and how creative you can be.
Firstly it can merely mean outsourcing or delegating jobs/tasks to someone else – ie asking for help! (Which I covered in my Day 7 blog – Learning To Ask For Help – 5 Simple Tasks You Can ‘Outsource’ To Help Manage CFS).
Improvising is about being smart with the tools you have, and if those ‘tools’ happen to be other people around you who you could ask them to help you out with something, then improvise away! 🙂
The other way of improvising is multi-faceted, but I’ll give you the examples that come to mind for me.
Yesterday (yes, this is a blog written over 2 days!), I did quite a bit of vacuuming while sitting on the floor or on a chair. It takes a lot of strain off my body if I’m not standing, so I often do this. AND I break it up into ‘bite-sized chunks’ so that I don’t wear myself out.
A chair on wheels is also a great tool for sit-down vacuuming or mopping the floor. I forgot that one yesterday, but I do use it quite a bit.
Frankly, I can do most things sitting down – even the dishes if I have to (drying is easier than washing). Again, the desk chair on wheels comes in handy here.
You will have your own great ideas on how to improvise to get tasks done. Please share them with us all in the comments section because they’d be a great resource. I’m thinking it could be a whole other blog! 🙂
Today’s Action Step
Find one task you’ve been overwhelmed with or putting off and use the above tips to break it down into manageable steps. Then actually take those steps. Even if you allocate 5 minutes a day to it, you’ll see progress over the week – and feel better about yourself in the process. PLUS something will get completed or started that will help your life work better in some way.
And workability is really what much of this is about. Some of it’s about ‘looking good’, but much of it is just about having a workable environment. So even if it’s just your bedside table that is totally cluttered, set a goal to put one thing away each day until you have a nice clear space to put only the things you really need.
I won’t say until tomorrow in any language for now. I plan to write a second post today to keep up with my daily 31 Days To A Better CFS Life goal. Maybe I’ll manage it. Maybe I won’t. I’ll certainly be using all my own advice above in order to attempt to complete that task :-).
Keep Smiling 🙂
Louise
Related Posts
Day 1: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 3 Myths of Acceptance That Hold Us Back
Day 2: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – It Is As It Is. Choose It!
Day 3: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 5 Ways To Control Our Thoughts When In Overwhelm & Despair
Day 4: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 6 Things You Can ALWAYS Do Despite CFS / ME
Day 5: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 7 Ways To Focus Your Thoughts On Something Uplifting
Day 6: 31 Day To A Better CFS Life – Being Present – 7 Simple Mindfulness Techniques To Help Manage CFS
Day 7: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Learning To Ask For Help – 5 Simple Tasks You Can ‘Outsource’ To Help Manage CFS
Day 8: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Discover Podcasts – 5 Steps To Finding & Listening To Good Podcasts
Day 9: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Listen To Your Body. I Am Today!
Day 10: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 10 Ways To Nurture Yourself & Fill Your Bucket
Day 11: 31 Day To A Better CFS Life – 5 Ways To Combat Spoonie Mother Guilt on Mother’s Day!
Day 12: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – My 5 Fave Ways To Connect With The Online CFS / ME Community
Day 13: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – How & Why Audiobooks Are A Great Illness-Management Tool
Day 14: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life -10 Top Audiobooks I Recommend
Day 16: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – What Are You Struggling With Most Right Now?
Day 17: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life: What Are You Doing WELL In Managing CFS / ME / Fibro? What Are You NOT Struggling With?
Day 18: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 3 Things I Struggle With At The Moment & How I Manage Them
Day 19: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 101 Ways I Manage CFS / ME & Electrosensitivity Pain
Day 20: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 5 Benefits Of Writing To Help Manage CFS / ME
Day 21: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Gratitude is Healing – 5 Ways To Practise Gratitude
Day 22: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – A Letter To Partners Of People With CFS / ME
Day 23: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – 7 Healthy, Safe Ways To Release Emotions
Day 24: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Letter To The General Public From Those With CFS / ME / FM – Part 1
Day 25: 31 Days To A Better CFS Life – Letter To The General Public Pt 2 – How You Can Support Someone Who Has CFS / ME / FM