Since living alone I have been struggling a lot to do anything, because there is so much to do all the time and I get overwhelmed and have no one to tell me what I need to do next. My friends and therapist tell me I need to prioritize tasks, but I don't know how and they can't help me with daily decisions, only give general advice that hasn't been super helpful.
For example, at the moment there is a pile of dishes I need to do, there are some emails I have to answer, I have to make two doctor's appointments, I need to buy a present for a friend, I need to write an essay, and so on. I can't do all of this today and don't need to, but all of it is important and and every task has a different (often ambiguous) deadline and nothing is so urgent I need to do it right now. But I do have to start with something, plan some time for longer tasks (like writing the essay) otherwise I will run out of time, but I don't know how so the stress builds up and in the end I don't do anything and just lie in bed all day. Sometimes if I have a lot of energy (which happens on a good day every few weeks) I try to get everything done at once and usually overwork myself and get a migraine and lose 3 days again because I'm not able to work at all during that time.
I've been recommended Goblin Tools and it helps with breaking down tasks into smaller ones, but it doesn't help with what to prioritize. I already have 3 different planners to keep track of everything and that also helps, at least with not forgetting appointments and stuff, but it doesn't help with daily planning and getting into a routine, at least not as much as I would need.
I have less support then I used to and won't be able to get more in the forseeable future, unfortunately. So if you have any tools and/or strategies you could recommend that don't rely on other people reminding me, that would be great!
So I'm a giant mess of a person right now and I made a post recently asking for similar advice (kinda?) - please read this with that in mind. I certainly haven't figured it all out but this is what I am trying and have generally had some success with.
I recognize that living alone made some things easier and others harder for me but I've also included some things I use at work where I work independently. That environment might be more comparable.
Some of these things take a lot of effort and you can't just "do them". This approach is more about building patterns and "rules" you can learn on.
Identify patterns for when I tend to be more able to do certain things. I can't clean when there is no sunlight for example, and like hell I'm doing any bill paying or budgeting if it's not first thing in the morning (same goes for financial and admin stuff at work lol). Calling someone? Need privacy, a notebook and a dedicated block of time.
get a sense of how many tasks you can handle in a day. Weekends off work I can probably do 1-3 per day, but I need to be home from any excursions by about noon or the day is over lol. Breaking things up into tasks here is helpful because you might be treating something as one task but when you actually go to do it you see it's got a million steps and maybe you can't handle it any more. Knowing that in advance makes me feel way less flustered when I want to switch tasks.
get a sense of how long you need to rest/reset between tasks and how much rest is too much. You should rest if you are tired but sometimes for me rest morphs into an activity which is a task...and before you know it it's game over man.
once you have an idea of what conditions are best for each type of task you can use that to figure out when you are doing them. That's not quite the same thing as prioritization but for repetitive tasks it works pretty well. I do a certain cleaning task every morning while my coffee cools because I know I'm not going to do it when I get home from work.
it's not the same as prioritizing but if you can make tasks easier on you (as if you can book appointments via email if they don't offer online or things like that), you'll be able to do the task under a wider range of conditions.
things like essays are always hard for me because I have no idea how long they take but knowing it has a deadline maybe that means you can try and use up your good thinking/writing time for that first, and then other things can come second to that. (Do as I say not as I do 🫣)
I also try and keep a list of tasks I can do right now without much transition. This goes hand in hand with making things easier for you. I can pay a bill at anytime on my phone, but maybe I won't enter it into my budget. At least it's paid - I did the most critical part - and it can wait until a weekend morning to be entered into the budget.
For me the worst part is the panic and paralysis. Giving myself permission to do one or two things in the weekend and one very tiny thing after work each day helps a lot. This week my after work tasks are:
Recognizing my limits is a big part of this, I realize... not very easy though, unfortunately. But planning rest periods is very important, you're right! I'll try to take notes on when I feel most energized so I can figure out when to plan in things.