mercurial scribe

I am having a really hard time trying to figure out the balance between managing my bipolar, dealing with the aches/pains/fatigue of pregnancy, running a start-up business and running a clean and organized home. The last two (business and home) I know are the plight of so many women, but with the added other two (bipolar and pregnant), I’m just feeling massively overwhelmed.

To be honest, despite my best intentions to work 35-40 hours a week on my career, I’ve had to take a “sanity day” once a week for the past two months. I intended to go on vacation last week, but considering I’ll probably be taking most of April off, I wanted to take advantage of the momentum I’ve got going.

What I’m finding most strange is how my nesting instinct runs hot and cold. One day I am so determined and it seems like I get 1/4 of the apartment in total order. Then for two days I’m so fatigued and flouting my “pregnancy stupids”, I have a hard time focusing long enough to read a book I’m supposed to review. Then the next two days, I’m superwoman and accomplishing tons at work and little on the home front.

It feels so similar to the early years of my bipolar swings, but I don’t feel out of control or depressed (most of the time) or manic. I just have energy or I don’t. I’m not one to appreciate inconsistency. In fact, I’m learning more and more that inconsistency is a huge pet peeve of mine. I like a hefty amount of routine and predictability in my every day life - which makes when I choose to break that routine even more fun and special! But when I can’t even establish a routine to my days, I get frustrated and feel like a failure.

My greatest attempt to curb this was setting a daily “schedule” so to speak.

Morning routine: 30 minutes
Marketing: 3 hours
Lunch: 1 hour
Writing: 3 hours 30 minutes
Recharge: 5 hours
Languages: 2 hours
Sleep: 9 hours

This way, whether I wake up at 7 am or noon, I have an order to my day. Mostly it’s helped, but there are days I just bail on it and do what I can.

Another thing that has helped me is this little web app called Slim Timer. I use it in my Firefox sidebar so track my working time and tag my projects so I know what I’m devoting my time to while I’m working. That’s helped keep me on track when I’m working mostly because I see how much I’m getting paid to do what - and that’s a big motivator for me, to increase my hourly wage!

I wish knew more to do, but the daily routine and tracking my time is all I can get my brain to wrap around right now. I want so badly to get this set so that when my little girl is born, it will be more comfortable to ease her into my daily routine giving us both a sense of predictability and security.

And if she’ll have none of it - well, at least I can say I tried!