like that sounds intuitive and vague but so much of the day is spent in a period of wait and if you struggle to motivate yourself to do things then this is the best time
waiting for your water to boil? bag up your garbage. waiting for your coffee to drip? wipe down your counters. roommate taking up the bathroom? scoop the cat box. waiting for your food to cook in the microwave? do however many dishes you can while it’s in there.
waiting is the perfect time to do a limited amount of something for yourself where you would be otherwise just standing around doing fuck-all
THIS IS REALLY HELPFUL!
I actually turn this into a game!
“How many chores can I do while the water is boiling for my tea?”
“Can I put away the dishes and wipe the counters before my lunch finishes reheating?”
“Can I sweep the floor AND change the laundry while the dogs are out back?”
You can totally do this! If you make it like a game, also, you will get better at it, and you can be like ‘yes, now I put away the dishes AND wiped out the sink before my water boiled, I am a level 2 Adult!’
It’s also helpful because it reminds you (me) how little time some of these things actually take. “Oh. I can do (X) in the 2 minutes it takes that to heat up in the microwave. I guess it’s not actually a huge overwhelming task that I need to psych myself up for and make Special Elaborate Preparations before I can do it. Huh.”
This is also a super good way to limit the amount of time you spend on something, if there are tasks you tend to over-do, or if like me you have a habit of spending too much time on one thing to avoid doing another thing. I used to help with a dog training class and one of the things we taught our students was in the beginning at least to only do training in short bursts… two or three minutes, high value treats and lots of praise, get the behavior you want once or twice and you’re DONE. People have a tendency when they keep at it for too long to really hammer the dog with the same behavior over and over and be really perfectionist about it and make the whole experience Not Fun At All for their dog, and if you do that over the long term that is super bad. So we’d tell people to only work on training with their dog during commercial breaks. That way there was a definite end time, the dog gets to chill and absorb what you’re teaching while you sit back down and watch your show, you leave them wanting more so they’re eager the next time you jump into it instead of being crabby and over the whole experience, and basically it’s just a win all around.
I can usually manage to clean up at least half of the mess from making food during the waiting parts of the food-making, which is really essential for those days when I’m not braining well enough to actually go back and finish cleaning up later. This way, I at least reduced the mess. I’ve also gotten into the habit of putting away each ingredient immediately after using it, for longer cooking projects, which is useful because it means there won’t be a big overwhelming pile of food to deal with later, and even if I never do any of the dishes at least food won’t be left out to spoil. The only pitfall is sometimes I accidentally engage autopilot and put away things I haven’t used yet and then I have to get them back out…. only on bad brain fog days though.
The other useful thing to do in waiting periods is minor exercise. Just warm-ups and light stretching, but if you’re like me and get bad body aches from sitting weird and not stretching enough, getting in the habit of doing those warm-ups and stretches while water boils or the microwave goes, is super helpful for pain reduction. You could also do a few sets of hand weights or bodyweight exercises in the longer gaps, if that’s your thing.
You could also train yourself to pay attention to your posture and breathing during these gaps. Basically, if you can turn it into the trigger for a healthy habit, like “I just put the kettle on = time to do The Thing”, it’s a good way to sort of trick yourself into self care that you usually forget to do.
Only loosely related but lately when I’ve been finding myself faced with a task that 1) I don’t want to do and 2) I can’t figure out a reason I don’t want to do it, other than “I don’t want to”, I’ve been setting a timer for 7 minutes and doing the task until the timer goes off.
7 minutes seems like the right length for me in that it’s not too long or overwhelming but it is long enough that I can make progress in the task. When the timer goes off if I still don’t want to be doing the thing, I let myself stop, but more often than not I’m like “oh this isn’t so bad actually. I can do another 7 minutes”
I think it works because I can’t tell how long a task is going to take me, at all, ever, so saying “I have to do this” locks me in for as long as that thing takes, which could be three hours, I don’t know. Saying “I’m just going to address this for 7 minutes” gives me permission to leave it unfinished if I need to, but also gets some of it done so that I’m not paralyzed by guilt over not doing it.
Anonymous asked: Hello! I was reading through the notes on your post about Black Panther and I'm confused about some things. What's wrong with non-black POC aspiring to achieve the same representation that black folks got with Black Panther?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting representation. There’s also nothing wrong with demanding good representation for an underrepresented group of people.
The problem however, is that a lot of these discussions happen after Black people have made strides for themselves. I’m not sure if you were around during the #OscarsSoWhite controversy back in 2015/2016, but I certainly was. April Reign, a Black woman created the hashtag as a means of getting better representation for all marginalized groups (including Black people, NBPOC, LGBT, Women, differently-abled folk, etc) Now the people who spoke up the most during this were Black people (and that’s not to say there weren’t NBPOC’s. and other marginalized voices speaking up, but Black people got most of the attention (whether because we were louder, or because of hypervisibility or what have you) and Black people got most of the brunt and criticism. Saying that we’re “Just looking for things to be upset about” and “This doesn’t even really matter” and people were all up in Ms. Reign’s mentions with their racist shit.
Once the controversy hit the big stage, suddenly more and more NBPOC were beginning to speak up, but when they did, it was only to criticize Black people for not placing ALL POC’s in the limelight.
Look at the #NotYourMule tag on Twitter for more information (and there were plenty of think pieces on the hashtag as well).
It’s like, when Black people advocate for something we’re always “Complaining too much and that’s why we’re behind” but once our voices and issues come to the forefront of conversations, suddenly other groups demand that we “quiet down” so they can “speak” even though there’s nothing stopping them from advocating for their own issues.
Or every Black history month when I, and many other people I follow/know have to explain that 1. There are other months that celebrate the history of non-white people and 2: No, it’s not Black people’s fault that they may not get as much attention as BHM.
I remember when Aquaman was first making the rounds on the Twitter verse and there were plenty of people pretty much demanding that Black people show up for Aquaman the same way we did for Black Panther. There seems to be an undercurrent of entitlement to our labor, our voices, our movements, and everything else we do.
And these are just a few examples. They only ever seem to find their voices when Black people are making headway for out own issues (and again, that’s not to say ALL NBPOC do this, but enough do that it is a sticking point for a lot of Black people.)
I’ll even give you another example. I’m a gay man, and in the 2000′s the biggest phrase for the LGBT movement was “Gay is the New Black” as if Black people had “had their turn” and needed to step aside and let “The New Minority” take the spotlight. And what that did was not only appropriate Black Civil Rights iconography, but also erased Black Queers (like myself) and made it seem like we didn’t deal with both antiblack racism and homophobia at the same time. People are more than happy to take our history and our iconography to make strides for themselves, while also erasing and ignoring Black people they come in contact with. Why?
I’m all for solidarity. I’m all for working together so that everyone can have a voice and good representation, but I am not here for other groups trying to make Black people feel guilty for trying and making strides for our community.
And Crazy Rich Asians, Aquaman and Coco all did very well in the Box Office, and yet I don’t see any think pieces demanding that we have a “Mexican Aquaman” or a “Polynesian Crazy Rich Asians” or an “Asian Coco”. And why should we? Each of those films were beautiful in how they portrayed their varying cultures and no one is saying “We need a Non-Asian/Non-Mexican/Non-Polynesian” version of these narratives, but for some reason that’s what everyone seems to say whenever we get a Black film.
Yes, I want inclusion and diversity in all facets of our entertainment but I’m sick of being made to feel guilty about taking pride in seeing how wonderful and beautiful Black people can be and are.
