Help me plan an unstructured Sunday

March 23, 2025 2:49 AM

I just started an intense mental health programme (daily therapies and lots of structured downtime, considerable emotional drain from being with other depressed people). I'm highly motivated to follow the recommendations I receive there, one of which is to improve my time management with schedules. Today is my first day "off". What do I do with it?

I'm struggling to decide what my therapists would recommend: should I have this precious day be unstructured and restful to gather energy for a new week, which would probably mean a lot of TV? Or should I do what I currently feel motivated to do, which is set up a plan for hour-by-hour activity (and then likely crash)?

Things I "want" to do:

Wash clothes for tomorrow and bedding for tonight

Take the dogs on a 2 hour walk

Take a bath

Cut the dogs' nails and apply tick protection

Visit my grandma (easily a 5 hour endeavour, will probably involve yard work. Would feel good, but also draining to hear about relatives' problems)

Clean up the house, which involves vacuuming, tidying all rooms, doing at least three loads of laundry and lots of dishes, unpacking moving boxes, fixing blinds and locks, cleaning the bathroom, and cleaning the communal stairwell.

Make some meals for a relative who lost someone important

Write a letter to a child who's waiting for it

Cuddle the dogs, who've been missing me because I'm gone all day (as I write this, they're insistely trying to solicit pets)

Fill puzzle toys

Send emails to insurance companies

And lastly, do basics such as making meals for myself (which is always a struggle)

I'm in this programme for depression and burnout, so objectively, it feels like doing a lot on the weekend is unwise. The therapists say that during the downtime at the clinic, people should resist the temptation to do errands or make calls. They consider all time there "work". But subjectively, my brain constantly asks what I could possibly be burned out from (I'm barely working for money, most of what I do is care work and fretting). So I feel very guilty about all the things I'm letting slip. Plus, the house is uncomfortably chaotic.

I'd be grateful for any ideas and thoughts. What I want to avoid most is a stressful evening leading to a stressful morning, possibly being late or not making it to my programme.

posted by toucan to Grab Bag (10 answers total)

I think there's a middle ground here. From your list of activities, I'd suggest:

Washing- especially because you can throw on a load and come back to deal with it later. This is a gift to future you and a good use of time.

Dog walk: 2 hours probably too much, but a shorter one?

Dog care, including puzzle toys.

Cuddle dogs.

Write letter while cuddling dog - maybe!

Sort out meals for yourself. (Own oxygen mask first!)

Other than that, rest.

There is way, way too much there- some of those bullet points are whole day endeavours. Rest. Rest is important.
posted by freethefeet at 3:07 AM on March 23 [13 favorites]

Your list is good as it is. If it feels good to tick things off the list, do that. Don't add to it, there's already a lot there.

But I feel like it might be worth facing the irony that when you've been given some unstructured rest time, your first instinct is to:
1) structure it
2) feel guilty in advance about what you haven't accomplished

I wonder if living your life doing this sort of thing might be why you're burned out in the first place (especially if it also involves caregiving, which is hugely emotionally stressful in ways that many people underestimate). You're beating yourself up for literally no reason and you haven't even started! I bet you constantly have lists like this in your head even when you don't realise it (I say that because I do the exact same thing and it's exhausting!).

No matter what you do, I think you should show this post to your therapist and talk to them about whether scheduling your day is actually a beneficial activity for you.

(Also: cuddle the dogs. Right now, stop doing anything and cuddle the dogs. You'll feel better.)
posted by fight or flight at 3:13 AM on March 23 [16 favorites]

What I want to avoid most is a stressful evening leading to a stressful morning

baths are very helpful for reducing stress, imo. after you put the washing in, you could bathe & reflect on being unstructured. improve my time management with schedules can also encompass more than one day, i.e. think about a bath tomorrow morning: a nice, relaxing way to start the day

Sort out meals

there are 3 items that could relate:

making meals for myself

Make some meals for a relative

Visit my grandma (easily a 5 hour endeavour, will probably involve yard work. Would feel good, but also draining to hear about relatives' problems)

instead of yard work, could the grandma visit involve meal prep?
posted by HearHere at 4:11 AM on March 23

Your list can be divided into two types of tasks

Looking after others:

Make some meals for a relative who lost someone important
Take the dogs on a 2 hour walk
Write a letter to a child who's waiting for it
Cut the dogs' nails and apply tick protection
Visit my grandma (easily a 5 hour endeavour, will probably involve yard work. Would feel good, but also draining to hear about relatives' problems)
Cuddle the dogs, who've been missing me because I'm gone all day (as I write this, they're insistently trying to solicit pets)
Fill puzzle toys

And looking after you:

Wash clothes for tomorrow and bedding for tonight
Take a bath
Clean up the house, which involves vacuuming, tidying all rooms, doing at least three loads of laundry and lots of dishes, unpacking moving boxes, fixing blinds and locks, cleaning the bathroom, and cleaning the communal stairwell.
Send emails to insurance companies
And lastly, do basics such as making meals for myself (which is always a struggle)

However a couple of items on the second list may actually be looking after others type activities. Cleaning the communal stairwell is not prioritizing yourself and those emails to insurance companies might not be as much for your benefit as to make other people go away or take care of someone else's security needs.

I'm going to suggest you prioritize the list into

Dishes and kitchen clean
Make meals

Then
Bath and laundry and changing the bed linen

Then

Take a two hour walk with the dogs, which will be really good for YOU as taking walks is often more effective against depression that meds or counseling.

Now as for scheduling - you may need to prioritize the walk so as to get daylight, or for some other reason. I listed them in order of importance when tackling burnout and depression. Self care needs to come first. Your meals come before cleaning, because you can survive a week in a filthy mess better than you can survive a week without food.

If you are energetic enough you should be able to fit in cutting the dogs nails, and cuddling the dogs and filling puzzle toys. But I would like to stress that you almost certainly need to also spend two to six hours more or less flat on your back reading a book, or doing some enjoyable task that does not use up executive functioning spoons, because you entirely did NOT list any activities that count as restful, and if burn out is an issue right now for you, you need to be doing that. (But not glazing out on a device until you don't know where the day went and are a quivering mass of anxiety due to the state of the world and the internet.) The doggos take priority over the grandma, the child and the bereaved relative, because the dogs are entirely dependent on you.

And you take priority over everyone because you are suffering depression and burnout and if you don't take care of your well-being first you are going to crash and lose the ability to function. Doggos are going to suffer if you spend an entire weekend in bed crying, not eating and not taking them for walks. Child will not get any letters if you end up with involuntary admission to a psyche ward. Grandma will not get any help with yard work, if you end up with long Covid, or have a stroke, or get addicted to fugue states where you spend 16 hours a day gaming.

Once you have done all your personal and canine care taking AND RESTED by deliberate loafing, I'd look at the tasks that involve care taking others and see which is the smallest job (the letter to the child?) and prioritize that. But this Sunday is not looking long enough to fit that in.

Keep in mind that if you choose to phone grandma or order dinner dash cards for the bereaved family member that is a substitute task that will also take time and executive functioning spoons. Don't decide to call grandma (and end up chatting for over an hour) in lieu of visiting and set up delivery meals for the family member as priority over your own self care even if that may immediately enormously reduce your stress over their well being, because that will not take care of you, and their needs will likely recur before you have a chance to do sufficient self care to reduce your own state of stress.

You can easily end up not doing the laundry because you did the letter, a phone call (or three) and ordering on line... and you'll still end up stressed out and still need to do more, since Grandma's yard is not going to go away, and you will still feel the need to be there for the bereaved person, and the child will probably write back promptly and need a letter again. You can't ever satiate the ravenous beast of loving and looking after and supporting other people.

Meals are the hardest thing on your task list, the one thing you said would challenge you. Start the day by working on the hardest most important task. If you are eating poorly you are undermining your functioning. If the only thing you manage today is to wash enough dishes to get some meals planned and set up, and have your food figured out you will have laid down the most critical foundational work for the rest of the week.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:34 AM on March 23 [9 favorites]

My rule for this is that doing something useful-but-not-relaxing during time reserved for rest is only allowed when the stress from it not being done interferes with resting more than doing it would. (Lack of clean clothes could be a good reason to do laundry.) Also, that means it's still interfering with resting, so I should work on preventing this next time during time that's not reserved for rest, or perhaps reconsider my standards for what I allow myself to get stressed about.

If, at the end of the day, you feel that you've "wasted your time", you probably did it right. (Eventually, you'll learn that rest is actually important, but your brain isn't there yet and that's okay.)
posted by demi-octopus at 6:03 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

During times in my life when I have had limited time and energy, because of physical illness or mental stress, I have sometimes written up my day's to-do list under three headings: "Must do," "Should do," and "Would like to do."

"Must do" is for things that really have to be done on this very day, or there will be consequences I'm not willing to deal with. Paying a bill to avoid a late fee would fall into this category. Laundry if I will otherwise not have clean clothes for tomorrow's work day would be another.

"Should do" are things that I can see need doing, but that won't cause unbearable consequences if they're not done. Most cleaning falls into this category, most days. Paying a bill that's not due until next week. Laundry if I'm going to run out of clothes but not until later in the week. The communal stairwell would fall into this category for me. Preparin g meals in advance because otherwise I will keep spending more than I want to on takeout would fall into this category, if "not spending on takeout" is a preference rather than a need due to financial hardship. It's amazing how much can be put into this category; I have managed fairly well for pretty extended periods by always focusing on the "must dos," if that's all the energy I have on any given day.

"Would like to do" are things that I enjoy and that either relax me or give me a lot of pleasure. Reading a book, walking the dogs, taking a nice bath, writing a letter, taking a nap, seeing a friend are all things that would go into this category for me.

The "must do" items have to be done, by definition. But in a period of burnout or low physical or mental energy, it helps me to prioritize some of the "would like to" items ahead of the "should do" items. This keeps me from reaching the end of the day with all my energy used up on doing things that don't bring me pleasure or nurture me emotionally or spiritually. It's a tricky line to figure out—I really do enjoy paying bills, for instance, and organizing things, and take a lot of satisfaction in "getting things done." I love walking dogs.

But I think the most important things in the "would like to do" category are the ones that, in some sense, it wouldn't really matter if I never did them. A person can live their entire life without taking an afternoon to read, or re-watch favorite movies, or wander a bookstore, or linger over a flight of fruit beers at the brew pub. There are no concrete consequences for these things, and nobody will come after you for not doing them. These are the "would like to do" items that need special attention, and are best prioritized ahead of the "should do" list.
posted by Well I never at 8:02 AM on March 23 [3 favorites]

When you are in burnout, you have to strip everything down to bare minimum. This list is pro-burnout.

Obviously, you've got a lot of unavoidable stuff to do - dogs need walks, you need hygiene, you gotta eat - but everybody's going to have to accept half-assing right now.

So:
-One load of clothes and one of bedding
--assuming you have an in-house washer/dryer, you can do another load maybe Tues or Weds evening.

-Walk the dogs enough but not the most
--nails need clipped but maybe you can do that during a couch break

-Consider ordering leftover-grade takeout or easy-assemble groceries for meals
--one big take-and-bake pizza, a couple cans of Progresso soup and some nice rolls, get a frozen family size "skillet meal" Asian/Pasta and pad it with an extra bag of frozen veggies, Ready Rice + Can Chickpeas + Tasty Bite pouch entree, yogurt and granola, at least 5 bananas, bag of grapes, frozen chicken tenders + bag salad (mac and cheese on the side? treat yourself). Order a family meal from a falafel place or BBQ restaurant and stretch it with salad, microwaved potatoes, or frozen steamer veg.

-Critical cleaning: trash, pick up anything that the dogs might get into, vacuum, you can tidy the bathroom while you prepare to shower/bathe.

And then in between each of these tasks roll in ACTUAL rest. You're playing by Flu Rules for the forseeable future: you're sick, you HAVE TO TAKE IT EASY or you will get sicker and none of this stuff will ever get done.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:13 AM on March 23 [3 favorites]

I think this is a good insight:

But I feel like it might be worth facing the irony that when you've been given some unstructured rest time, your first instinct is to:
1) structure it
2) feel guilty in advance about what you haven't accomplished

My first reaction, upon reading your title, was: Well, just don't!

Of course, this isn't always realistic or preferable; sometimes there are things that must be done, or that doing now will stave off more work and stress in the future. Sometimes there are things on the to-do list that genuinely bring you joy and satisfaction, and doing them actually combats burnout, rather than the other way around. For me, that might be walking the dogs if the weather is nice, for example. Or starting a new book.

But, but, but. I think it is really worth discussing with your therapist why this is your first instinct when faced with a lot of unstructured free time. Instead of thinking of it as time for you to relax and recharge, you're thinking about it as time in which you should/must be Doing The Things, setting high expectations for how many Things you will do, and burning yourself out in advance.

You know this intellectually; you know that doing this is bad for you, because as you say, you will likely crash. But emotionally you are having trouble reframing how you think about your time.

Learning to structure your time more efficiently is not at odds with having unstructured free time. In fact, one of the reasons to learn to do that is to preserve that unstructured free time.

Do the bare minimum that will get you by on your free day. There are already some good comments about how to prioritize "must/should/want."
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:30 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

subjectively, my brain constantly asks what I could possibly be burned out from (I'm barely working for money, most of what I do is care work and fretting

I am sure you already know this, but in case it helps to hear it again: care work is hard work, whether or not you’re getting paid. And not getting paid leads to quicker burnout because then you have less ability to outsource your own household tasks to get some rest.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:55 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

The therapists say that during the downtime at the clinic, people should resist the temptation to do errands or make calls. They consider all time there "work"

Therapy can be hard. It involves substantial amounts of reprogramming maladaptive ways of thinking and personal programming that are causing your problems in the first place.

It will not necessarily feel good to have unstructured time, and it may well feel wasteful, but that is literally the task you have been set here, correct? You are not helping your burnout by building a list that will burn you out further.

Take care of your dog, then take care of you. Have the bath, cook your food ahead of letters or visits or cleaning or whatever. And don't time it, and don't put it on a schedule. You've been told by your therapist not to. You know, intellectually, that you're supposed to be resting, and have been told not to do errands. So don't do errands!

This is rest and recharge time. This is the task you've been set, and it takes precedent over everything else. Feeding your dog and feeding your body are important, but everything else can be released.

Please listen to your therapist when they say to avoid errands. It's part of the work of recovery, if that helps.
posted by Jilder at 6:48 PM on March 23