Dunno how else to call it. Got me a job. It’s not a bad job. I like the work I do, I tolerate the people there, the hours are not long, it’s unionised so they can’t harrass me when I’m off the clock, it pays the bills I got.
… But god damn. Once I’m home I lack the drive to do literally anything.
I’ve stopped going to gym, I often eat junk cuz I just don’t wanna cook, even my hobbies are being left to gather dust. After working my 9-to-5 I just wanna lie down and rot until it’s work time again.
So the question is, how do the better-adjusted adults handle this?
There’s a good dozen of great suggestions in the comments here for tips to sort out various things like cooking, etc. (I have saved a few for myself later).
So instead I’ll offer some meta advice for making these things feel effortless:
- Find the paths of least resistance and chain them together.
Look at the additional activities you want to add on to your day before/after work and figure out what is the most effortless way to trigger starting one activity when the previous one ends.
For example, back in April I wanted to start going to the gym regularly so I did three things: put together a gym bag with enough sets of gym clothes for the week’s exercise, keep that gym bag in my car, and joined a gym as close to my place of work as possible.
By doing this I was able to build “going to the gym” into my commute home from work. I have managed to keep up the habit of three gym sessions a week since then (with the occasional miss due to illness or other life events getting in the way).
- Make the good habits obvious and the bad ones obscure.
I struggled all my life with something so basic; remembering to brush my teeth both in the morning and at night. So what I did last year was use the IKEA peg board thing and found some holders for my toothbrush and toothpaste. That pegboard is right next to my bedroom door so I have to walk past my toothbrush whenever I leave the room as a visual trigger to go brush my teeth.
Think about how you can position physical reminders in your space to do the activities you want to do.
Or use your phone’s calendar/to do list app of your choice to book in reminders to nudge you into getting started.
- Just five minutes to get started and if necessary do the bare minimum badly.
Whenever I’m feeling tired but there’s a task that needs doing I ask myself “will this take five minutes or less?”. If the answer is yes, then I just do it there and then.
If it’s something that will take more than five minutes to complete to 100% then I say to myself “ok I’m tired but I’m just going to do five minutes of it and see how I’m feeling then”. This works out great for the gym example. Today on the way home from work I was knackered but I told myself to just do the five minutes as the bare minimum. Once I’d done a few minutes of exercise I felt like I was achieving and then pushed past the five minutes for a good 30 minutes before deciding that was enough for today.
And yes, there have been days when I literally just did the five minutes and stopped. But that didn’t matter, because I still completed what I set as the bare minimum. Those minimums still get me closer to my goals and therefore they’re still a win. So long as I’m getting just one more of these little wins over losing (i.e. not going to the gym) then the progress keeps stacking and the good habit continues to form.
Viagra
Now I’m horny as hell, but have no motivation to do anything about it.
Well currently I don’t have a job sooo… Honestly I know what you are talking about and I basically negotiate with myself on if im going to have fun after work or on the weekend. if I want to enjoy myself on the weekend I have to get stuff done during the week.
I don’t have a real solution, but for me I just try to be exceptionally mindful of precisely what you already described. On my way home I try to think of a few productive things I could possibly muster before compromising/collapsing back into idleness
Everyone sharing their own coping mechanisms in the comments makes me want to question the whole thing itself. Why are we living like this? And why do we need to force ourselves to go through all this? What is the end goal? Are there no better ways to live? Why, why, whyyyy…
There are better way to live. But we’re used to a certain level of comfort, that includes not doing the many, many upkeep tasks to grow food, maintain home, clothing, etc. so we trade some time for currencies, that is then traded with other people, and the leftover currency allows us to indulge in fun things that are also complex and high maintenance, so they’re done by other.
Well, that’s the theory. In practice, working a full-time job barely, if even, covers the minimum expanses required to live, which keep going up anyway, so you have to work more to barely go by, which thankfully will let you forget that you won’t make anywhere near enough money for leisure time. Good thing you won’t have any, eh?
sigh knowing we have the technologies, right now, to cover all basic needs, including food and housing, for cheap, but still do with the charade of inflation so that a few select individual can extract all our time from us is really sad.
We live in a society
Why are we living like this?
No one is going up to people and offering them a better alternative. Literally that’s it.
On a less flippant note, The people who represent us, care more about the orhanizatins who give them money than they do about the needs and wants us the people they are representing.
If you aren’t producing value to pursue who can offer you a better life, then there is no reason for then to offer it to you.
Now add in tradition, culture, religion and a host of other competing morals and opinions, and we have the world of today
Capitalism. The answer is capitalism.
Food is literally free, it just grows out of the ground. If we weren’t such dickheads we could just take it in turns picking potatoes or whatever and spend the rest of our time fucking about doing whatever we want. Probably
Food is free, but farming takes effort and resources (such as fertilizers and tools) and acquiring the resources also takes effort and resources and…
At the end of the day, we all just want to get more out of our time than what we’d get by doing everything ourselves. And the capitalists of course get the most out of their time, if they even actually spend their time doing anything productive. Many don’t
Quit, then nothing is post work because everything is.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.
On a more serious note, I feel the same.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually do like my job. I’m working with people I like, I like what I’m actually doing, and I’m not waking up with dread every (or really, any) morning. I can’t even complain because I’m getting paid well, great benefits, tons of time off (so much in fact that my manager had to force me to take Fridays off until EOY just so I use up my base rate PTOs), great bonus situation, lots of options to travel, management is generally good as well.
But every single day, I just feel exhausted after work. Even when I’m WFH, or have little actually exhausting tasks to do… I’m just exhausted. Tired. No energy for anything but running a quick bath, or shower, reading for an hour or two, then sleeping.
In fact this lack of energy has been so bad recently that I’ve taken to inserting a workout+cooking+everythingelse hour in the middle of my WFH days just so things get done.
Relate to the WFH situation a lot. I need a fix really bad :(
I deal with this on and off myself. You have to find a way to get back to your old health habits, and create a schedule that allows you to do that. It sucks, because making time like that with your job is designed to be impossible, but you have no hope of ever feeling better if you have to work 8 hours a day or whatever AND you feel like crap because you are eating junk, not exercising, getting no sleep etc.
Personally my biggest hurdle is getting started on something. When I get home I NEVER feel like drawing, but if I sit down and force myself to start I slowly get more energy and focus.
Action precedes motivation. It sucks but it’s true.
This.
The first 10 minutes of any activity after work are by far the hardest, but once you clear that hurdle it’s easy to keep going
You only need to cook one day a week to have good meals.
Make a whole roast chicken on Sunday. You can have that bird all week. Ceasar salad with chicken; chicken tacos, chicken sandwich.
Get a big pot and make a giant stew. Freeze it in pint size containers. Right now I’ve got chili and lentil soup sitting in the freezer, waiting to be nuked.
Keep plenty of fresh fruit and quality cheese on hand. An apple with some sharp cheddar is a great snack.
Angel hair pasta takes about five minutes to cook; put any sauce you like on it.
You don’t have to go to the gym to stay fit.
Use this manual, 15 minutes a day.
https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf
Consider you might be depressed. Professional help could be in order. No shame in seeking help.
Probably not helpful but when I was roofing and at work for 11-12 hours a day, getting home and going for a short run really helped out (~4 miles). Something about that cardio gave me more energy and would guarantee I’d at least take a shower after. I think I was only running 3-4 days a week then.
It’s also a great time to decompress, just being alone with your thoughts a little. Then for a while after your heart rate is elevated and you’ve got some extra energy.
My back just stopped me from walking down one stair (and I barely made it back from trying) and here you are calling ~4 miles a “short run.”
I don’t begrudge you that, it’s good that your body is capable, but jeez it’s hard not to be envious.
If you force yourself to run a little bit one day, then a little bit more each day after that, then eventually 4 miles will feel like a short run.
I respect that, but I broke my ankle and it never healed properly. Apparently I subsequently injured my back (I have a severely bulging disk; not sure whether this is the result of my body or something I did). I’m not saying I’m not lazy - I am - but in this case my complaint is not the result of laziness.
That said, you basically paraphrased BoJack Horseman, and I approve of that.
I mean, I broke my hand and it never healed properly, I have pretty bad tendon damage in one ankle, I got shin splints like crazy when I started running, and I have previously herniated a disk, though not that major.
I’m not saying every single major injury is recoverable from, but look at the history of most athletes and you’ll see a lot of major injuries that they were able to recover from.
Again, not saying this is the case necessarily for your back, but I know people who have gotten relatively minor injuries, gotten terrified of them and/or used that as an excuse not to do any more exercise on that body part ever, and then got severely injured again because now the muscles and muscle control for that body part is severely undeveloped, putting more strain back on the tendons / ligaments.
The general recommended approach for most injuries is not to avoid them forever, but to do physio; i.e. reducing your exercises back down to zero weight, but still doing them, and continuously adding weight to re-build and strengthen those muscles and joints.
That’s a fair assessment.
My ortho has recently requested that I have some imaging done on my back, but anticipates a surgery to fuse my vertebrae will be needed. After that, from what I’ve been told, I’ll primarily have to conquer psychological barriers.
I highly recommend working on the psychological barriers before surgery. Surgery is never risk free, has a long recovery period, and is often unnecessary. Many people with bulging discs in their spines live completely pain-free. Back pain, in general, is the focal point of a lot of research around chronic pain because it is so common, and the general consensus in the field of pain research is that most back pain is best treated via psychosomatic interventions, not via drugs or surgery.
As someone who has dealt with chronic pain quite a bit in my life, I really recommend getting a copy of the book The Way Out and using the techniques outlined in it. The book was a total game changer for me, and issues I’d been dealing with for years disappeared basically overnight. Seriously. Read the book, start practicing the techniques, and start returning to normal activity and exercise.
Just wanna give this a +1 as someone who went through two years of back pain, then was cured inside a week after reading Sarno’s Healing Back Pain.
I’d tried months of PT, dozens of yoga classes, corticosteroid injections, NSAIDs, etc. and had no luck. The book guidance is what did finally did the trick and has kept issues at bay ever since.
try to do some beginner back excercises for a bit, it helped me
edit: oh i just saw you got injured, but still give it a go imo, unless it’s painful
edit2: i did these https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/485544403581516708/ (sorry for pinterest link)
It’s funny that this is about work life balance because I’m trying to catch some sleep before my fourth twelve in a row and my acute psych nurse brain just went nooo nooooooo oh noooooooooooo but assuming you never experience significant mania, psychosis, or delirium, I LOVE that for you.
Fuuuck we got an Amish patient one time, manic as hell (and you have to be pretty damn hyperreligious for your Amish family to get you committed) and EVERY time we had to tussle security would come out of it like “DAMN we were NOT expecting that from a first glance!” Wiry little thing but once you’d had to deal with it first hand you found out a few things about old-fashioned farm work!
I go pretty much straight from work to yoga, make supper at a civilized hour afterwards, and take Wednesdays off workouts to, as you say, flop.
Gardening I do in the morning before work.
Cooking I do because others depend on me, that’s been true for 30 years now, before that I didn’t remember to eat, just when hungry. Don’t keep junk in the house if it tempts you, make your easy stuff healthier. Hummus, boil eggs on the weekends so you have those, fruit, bagged salad greens, make it easier to eat nutritious food.
I want to say suck it up and go to the gym, you will be glad you did. 9-5 is pretty nice hours, here it’s 8-5 or 9-6. Exercise is one non-negotiable for me. I have gotten up at 5 to run when that was the only option, and have gone to the gym at 20:30 after night classes after work when that was the only option. You will feel better if you just GO and work out even if you don’t want to.
Habit>willpower. Commit to 6 weeks, and by then your schedule will probably settle out. Personally I put exercise ahead of healthy eating because I know my body.
I have no self control but I know this. So if its in the house I will eat it. Don’t buy it or hide it
My neighbour doesn’t even go inside when she comes back from work, she parks her car, ditches her bag in the bike shed, hops on her bicycle and tears off into the distance. I’ve seen her on her racing bike in a suit.
So, don’t give yourself the chance to veg out, do something on the way back home or go for a walk before you go in?
I have some after work martial arts classes and on the other days I practice for an hour or so on my own. I also think up what I want to cook and keep it interesting. Most of our crappy eating and snacking is due to boredom.
