Experiment 15 Jul 12 (Day 1)

Weight: 177 lbs (about 25-30 pounds too heavy)

Drugs: None today.

Productivity: High, but not manic high.

Moods: Normal in morning increasing to some mania in the night.

6.30 am

Wake up.

[This is late for me, and not quite on my planned schedule. But the best laid plans of mice and men etc. I just start the day the way I planned it. If everything is running about 30-40 min off sync, then so be it. No rush, no stress. Also it helps to build in spare time in your schedule so you can catch up on the "missed" time]

6.30 am to 8.00 am

Walked dogs. Collected my caffe latte grande on the way back.

[I literally roll out of bed, put on old clothes, gather dogs and leave house. Total time between waking up and out of house is about 5 minutes. I forgot to brush teeth, didn't do it until I returned.]

8.00 am to 9.00 am

Realise that I can't use the noisy dog blow dryer too early on Sunday morning, so have to wait to bathe dogs. Spend some time setting up for bathing dogs and some time on computer.

[I wanted to get on the computer as I soon as I got back from walking dogs, but held off. New rule, I'm not allowed on the computer after waking up or returning home until I have done 5 little tasks around the house. Will see how that works.]

9.00 am to 1.00 pm

Bathed the dogs. And dried them. They of course promptly went to play in the rain.

[Remember, I came out from depression yesterday. While bathing the dogs I had neither the manic energy nor the high effort feeling of depression. I just did what I need to do. Nice. Calm. Yay!]

1.00 pm to 2.30 pm

Parents passed with lunch. Bless them. I explained to them what I was planning to do for the next three months, adjusting for the sometimes less than helpful comments and the fact that my dad was dozing off. Still, they are fully supportive of me and my plans and it's hard to ask for more than that.

3.00 am to 4.30 pm

Wrote the Blog Post on Managing my life to Not Get Depressed.

[I really shouldn't have done this. The plan was to work on ordering my accounts, which are a bit of a mess. And I shouldn't have spent more than 1 hour. Still it did take about 90 min to write the blog post, and I really wanted to get the information down while I still remembered what I had discussed with parents. So, decided that exchanging one task for another is ok. Note how I am trying to keep everything at no more than 1-2 hours before moving on to a next task.]

4.30 pm to 6.00 pm

Walked dogs.

[In case you're wondering, my friends think I treat my dogs like supermodels. All this time with them is not too far out of normal. Note also that I stopped working on the computer and left the house to do something else. Which is why I walk the dogs twice a day.]

6.00 am to 7.30 pm

Fed Dogs. Updated my task list. Started on this blog post.

[Again, as I got home, I wanted to get on the computer. As per rule, did other little things and fed dogs first. Updated my task list for things completed / not completed for today. Then started in on this blog post. Still have to go out for a drink, deal with accounts, organise my task list for tomorrow (will write more about this on a separate blog post). So, not doing exactly as I planned, but moods still good, which is the important thing.]

7.30 am to 8.30 pm

Out for a beer.

[Noticed that I was starting to get manic before I left the house - wanted to start fixing stuff in the house today or tomorrow - so much to do. I'm also having slight physical coordination issues. But...peace. Most of the stuff to be fixed hasn't been done in the last month and a half, perhaps many months. A while again won't make a difference. As per usual, one of the problems of coming out of depression is that it can push me up into mild mania. The energy is a good thing - the tendency to try to do a whole set of things immediately isn't, because (a) I can too easily get caught up in a manic episode and (b) I'm still recovering from my depression episode dammit, I don't need to feel like I need to get lots of stuff done now!

Had one beer and some food and came home. The beer did help take the manic edge off, but now I'm slightly drunk. But I did get out of the house and away from the computer. Purchased espresso coffee for tomorrow morning since the shop won't be open before I finish walking dogs.]

8.30 am to 10.00 pm

Home. Got some accounts done. Planned day tomorrow. Finished this blog.

[Well, still capable of doing accounts, so that's something. Didn't start it until I had petted the dogs a bit, so followed rule about not immediately sitting in front of computer. Important to plan the day for tomorrow so that I have some idea how the day is going to work out. If I don't do this, tomorrow is going to be a mess.

I'm realising how much stuff I need to catch up on and panicking slightly. But I can only do so much in one day. I will catch up on most of the things, but it won't be tomorrow or this coming week. Better to be measured than running around flustered.

I did not do all the things I planned to do today. That's ok, the day was filled with tasks that had high priority anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. I only need to worry when I did not do everything because my productivity is dropping (depression) or because I scheduled myself to do way too much stuff (manic type symptom). In general, I've found it better to schedule a little less than a full day and if possible top it up with a few extra things. I feel better about myself because I got more done than expected rather than stressed about not doing everything I planned.

Have a headache caused by tension in my jaw. This indicates some mania. This is not a bad thing since it means that I will wake not wake up depressed tomorrow morning. But I'm expecting to have a restless sleep (but not insomnia), and I have to watch that the mania doesn't swing any higher tomorrow.]

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