Good morning mental health blog! Yesterday I talked about my task menu and Megaboard, and the ridiculous system I have for organizing tasks. I'm happy to say that so far, it's working pretty well! It's been especially helpful keeping track of the tasks I ended up wandering off to during the day— it helps my self esteem to realize that I'm still accomplishing a lot, even if I can't see it on my to-do menu. I don't have to feel bad or argue and justify to myself why nothing got done in a day.
Today, I want to share something I call Random Encounters! I got this idea from How To ADHD on YouTube, and I decided to call it something fun and D&D related to gameify it and make it fun. It's pretty simple.
all it takes is a D20 die, some phone alarms, and a place to write/type a list. I wrote out a list of 20 small activities I can do without effort or planning, with a focus on physical movement and changing my environment. It's important to be REALLY specific; "do 3 squats" is a lot less paralyzing than "do squats", so I'm more likely to just accept it and do it right away, and "throw a juggling ball for 5 minutes" is less likely to distract and throw off my whole day than "throw a ball". Being specific helps quiet the brain fog voice that says "but that could mean anything, what's even the point? Will just throwing an object once or touching my toes for 5 seconds really even do anything??" And empowers me to actually do the things, because I know they're quick, effortless, and will definitely make me feel healthier. Some of the activities are more complicated or more sustained than others, but having to take the chance of rolling them adds to the fun. It's like playing a game with your friends where you could end up drinking a shot of pineapple juice with sugar OR straight lemon juice; the fun is in the chance that you could get a challenge instead of a treat.
To keep myself accountable and make sure I actually use the tool, I set 3 alarms at slightly weird times through the day. Times like 11:13 and 2:20, when I'm less likely to get into the rut of expecting it to happen. I also used a ringtone app to set the noise to JoCat (A Crap Guide videos on YouTube) saying "clickity-clackity you're about to get attackity" for a little added D20 fun 😛 every time JoCat tells me to roll for initiative, I roll the D20, check the list, and do whatever activity I landed on. After, I'm free to continue whatever I was doing, or use it as a refresh point and pick another Menu item to accomplish.
And that's it! It's just a fun little way to break up my day a bit and get me doom scrolling a bit less, and the bonus is that it helps my awareness of time. Here's my Random Encounters table, in case anyone wants to use it or take inspiration from it:
Hang off my bed upside down
Go to the living room for 5 minutes
Put some ice in my waterbottle
Look for Blyth (he's very good at hiding)
Bug my roommate's cat for 5 minutes
Play with my roommate's cat for 10 minutes
Go to the porch for 5 minutes
Move to a song - you only have 2 minutes to pick one!
Spin in my desk chair for 3 minutes
Stretch my arms and shoulders on a doorframe
Throw a juggling ball for 5 minutes
Change a piece of clothing
Ironically, my Random Encounter alarm went off as I was writing this post. I rolled a 3 for going to the living room, and then realized I haven't had breakfast yet, so instead of timing it for 5 minutes, I decided to use the excuse to change my scenery and have breakfast in the sun 😊 because of that random encounter, I'm eating a meal, taking my meds, got to say good morning and pet Mars, and I got to see another human as one of my roommates was on his way out for the day. Promising myself to be accountable for at least the bare minimum has already made a major improvement to my day and my health.
