Tools that help to manage daily life

I just wanted to come on here and share the little things I started using in my daily life that have made a huuuuuge difference for me, in case they can help other people. And I would also love to hear about the tools you use that help you.

The main thing for me was trying to cope with the amount of house chores and fitting them into my days without feeling like they were taking over my life. And I have found that embracing technology has made a huge difference in my stress levels, because it's allowed me to delegate a large part of my mental load. So we're talking smart watch, digital calendars, digital to do lists and reminders, Alexa or similar.

For instance. I hate doing laundry, and I feel like it's a never ending fight. In part because I keep forgetting about it so it stinks and I need to do it again. Then I forget it AGAIN. I'm sure a lot of you can relate. So as we have an Alexa in the kitchen where the washing machine is, when I start the machine, I tell Alexa to start a timer called laundry. So when the laundry ends, Alexa literally tells me that my laundry is done. If I'm not ready to deal with it quite yet I tell it to start a new laundry timer. But this means I don't leave it for a day and I don't do it twice. Huge time saver.

I also started using an app called Habitica for my to do lists, because I love how it splits tasks into three different lists. Habits, Dailies and To Do's. It approaches it like a game, you win points and can level up etc. You get to say how hard a task is going to be for you and it will give you more points for the hard things. The Dailies list is what I find the most useful. I was struggling with the amount of house work as I was trying to clean the whole house in one go, but I recently added Daily tasks to Habitica, telling it how often they should be recurring, and I can even add reminders for some of them. I distributed the various chores throughout the week, and the app then only shows me what is to be done that day (and it will do that every week without me having to add things to it again). But I don't spend time thinking about the rest and worrying that I haven't done it, because I know when it is the right day, it will tell me. So I've stopped thinking about it, and it has removed a lot of stress. I also feel more on top of it because I only have one small task a day rather than tackling all of the chores at once. Habitica also allows you to add sub tasks, so for instance for sorting out my bedroom, I have sub tasks like "making the bed", or "putting clothes away" or "hoovering" and it means I get a little hit of serotonin every time I tick a sub task. It also means I can spread it out over the day if I want, and not forget I didn't finish it. Anyway. Huge shout out to Habitica, it's really helping me.

Another thing is using emojis on my calendar and to do lists (in Habitica as well). I have been writing things down so much it was becoming overwhelming to look at, so as well as colour coding my calendars, I started adding an emoji before the text (before so it shows even if the text is too long to be shown on the monthly view). There are basically emojis for everything so it's fairly easy to find something relevant. And another thing is that I've been adding break or chores times into my calendar. I work from home and it was difficult to focus on work when in my head I was thinking about all the chores to be done. So I have a calendar for "daily organisation" and I have added recurring breaks, one in the morning at 10:30 and one in the afternoon at 15:30, and these are the times when I can tackle my chores. They have a reminder, so I don't need to stress looking at the time, I can focus on my work until my phone tells me it's time. It doesn't just have to be breaks or chores but basically adding some of your to do list to your actual calendar can help if you also struggle with getting started with things.

Also I was trying to do loads during my lunch breaks, but having time for yourself is important, so I added it to my calendar but called it "me time" with a little plant emoji, and it's helping me change the way I look at my break to really have a pause and do something I enjoy or just relax, rather than rushing to fit in a grocery store trip or whatever (grocery deliveries also help a lot with that).

I haven't come up with all of these myself, my therapist suggested a couple and I've been able to come up with more once I had put these ones in place. I hope they can help other people as well, and if you have any other ideas and suggestions, I'd love to hear them, as I am always looking for better ways to manage my daily routine to minimise stress and mental load.