Lack of self dicipline - need some pointers!

amother

Tue, Mar 03 2015, 10:48 pm

I think this is much deeper than household management.
I have such a hard time managing my time and being self diciplined in my every day life just doing ordinary tasks. I am my own worst enemy. I leave things for the last minute ie shelach monos. I am quite addicted to my phone and upon waking I automatically turn it in and in no time at all I've wasted a precious 45 minutes. I KNOW I should be turning it off and doing other things on the early morning b/c I am the one who scrambles around and am always late to work in the morning. Evening is pretty much the same. I come home exhausted and it just is such a chill thing for me.
I force myself to make dinner but after eating, I never clean things up properly at night and wake up to a messy kitchen with lots to do b4 everyone wakes up. Then the cycle starts again.

How does one have self dicipline? Sooooo hard for me!

zaq

Tue, Mar 03 2015, 11:31 pm

May I let you in on a secret? Self-discipline is hard for everyone. That's why it's called self-DISCIPLINE and not self indulgence. Like strong muscles, nobody is born with it. You get it by exercising it a little bit more every day.

Start with small steps. Get in the habit of making a to-do list and challenge yourself to do X number of items on the list each day. Gradually increase the number of items you complete. Reward yourself in some way for each goal that you reach. Use a timer to help you reach goals. Either by saying you will clean up or pay bills or whatever for X minutes only. Having a finite assignment makes it easier. You don't have to clean the whole house, just clean up the kitchen for 5-10-15 minutes. OR by challenging yourself to see how much you can accomplish in 5-10-15 minutes, like the old TV game show Beat the Clock, and always try to beat your previous record.

And before you do any of the above, DUMP THE PHONE. It should never be in the bedroom, ever, for any reason, period. Keep it in the bag you carry to work and keep that in the kitchen or the entryway. If you use it as an alarm clock, do something alarmingly old-fashioned (ha!) and buy an alarm clock for the bedroom. If you can switch to a plan that charges you extra for going over your allotted minutes or data volume, try switching to such a plan to discourage you from using the phone. Do this only if you're money-conscious and know that you'll be reluctant to use a device that costs you extra when you use it a lot. If the specter of paying astronomical bills won't do this for you, then don't bother. No point being broke on top of everything else.