Was Ruminating Last Night on Work

I was having a tough time putting one of my work issues to rest last night.  I was just reviewing my Observations in the Tools section of Mood Sentry, and I see that i have an entry related to ruminations.  This is a fairly recent entry that I started a couple of weeks ago.  At the time I was attributing my ruminating during the night to Magnification.  I'm not sure that fits what was going on last night.  I think last night was more related to the concept of personalization.  I have an issue at work and I'm obsessing on fixing it.  That doesn't really sound that bad to me, because as lead it's my job to fix it.  However, that's not quite right.  It's actually my job to either fix it or make sure that it's being fixed.  Note the difference.  Of course I can't fix everything and I'm not expected to.  I was ruminating on something that couldn't be fixed without the input of others.  It didn't need to be fixed last night, and couldn't be fixed last night.  Somehow I have to figure out how to recognize that sometimes things need to be put down and let rest.  I'll work on this and tune my Observation a bit and see what develops.

Tough Day Today

Lots went on today at work, all money related and involving both suppliers and customers.  Things were hectic during the day so I didn't get a chance to review my entries in the app.  I did get a chance this evening, and I think I know what was driving my angst.  It was mind reading.  I reflected back on my day and believe that I was mind reading what suppliers, my teammates, my customer, and my boss were or would be thinking about my performance.  When I figured that out this evening I challenged those thoughts by asking myself what evidence do I have that anyone is thinking less of me because of these issues?  None. One of the challenges that came up was effectively dealt with, at least for now.  The other really isn't an issue at this time.  I started to feel better when I couldn't find any evidence to support those thoughts.  Reflecting back on my performance, I think I did pretty good dealing with these challenges.  I still have more work to do on one of them, but that's OK.  I'll work through this.

Kind of a Just Do It Day

I gave myself a task this morning to contact some different groups regarding work opportunities.  It seems I will have the time to support these other groups in a month or so and figured I would pulse them today and see if they had anything for me.  I've never contacted these groups before and didn't know how they'd respond to an out of the blue inquiry like this.  I'm often concerned that I'll say, write, or do something inappropriate and be chastised for it.  However, I'm getting better at challenging those thoughts and pushing myself through the associated inertia to just do it and get the job done.  I was glad I did.  It seems that at least one group may have something for me to work on, which is a good thing.  This evening I was reviewing my app and came across a couple of custom entries of mine, one related to pushing through the inertia associated with tasks like this and one associated with interactions with people I don't know.  That second custom entry is a new one and not quite filled out.  I'm looking forward to interacting with some new people so that I can finish that second custom entry.

Still Feeling Down this Morning

I'm still lamenting about not getting to take the week off.  So what did I do?  I reviewed My Experiences with this in mind.  The first distortion that came up when I opened My Experiences was magnification.  So I thought about how perhaps I'm magnifying the importance of not taking this week off and how this really isn't that important compared to having a job later this year (the reason I'm needed at work!).  I then started reviewing the other distortions with my lamentations in mind...
Emotional Reasoning - I'm down, and thus tend to focus on the negatives.  I did get some exercise in this morning and taking the time to review My Experiences is helping too.
Should Statements - yes: I should be able to take the time off.  Well, yeah, but I also should be ready to support my team when needed.  Priority wise, staying and helping is important.
Labeling - nothing here.
Personalization - I'm not sure if there's something here.
All or Nothing - yes: I'm never going to get to take time off.  That's just not true.  I have and will get to take time off.  This actually has an end date.
Overgeneralizations - yes: this always happens.  That just isn't true.  This doesn't always happen.  I've planned and taken time off on plenty of occasions.
Mental Filter - yes: I did find myself focusing on  only the bad stuff, but did take the time to think about the many things that are going well.
Disqualifying the Positive - nope.  Nothing here.
Jumping to Conclusions - yes: because I keep forecasting that I'm going to have to work late every day and still won't be able to get my regular work and the new tasks done.  This, so far, has not been even close to true based on recent experience.
Reviewing these entries in My Experiences like this helped improve my mood this morning and got me off to a pretty good start today.

Feeling a Bit Down Today

I think I'm just lamenting that I can't take the time off I planned to take.  I'm thankful that I have a job, particularly in this economy.  I know some distortions are at play with my mood, such as I'll never get to take a week of, and this is always going to happen, but I know both these thoughts are false.  The main driver for not taking this week off is a proposal effort with a near-term due date.  That will come to an end and after that I have another week off planned.  Also, I've taken plenty of time over my career and will do so in the future.  It's opportunities like this that have enabled me to have such a long career.  I know that I'm still around because when I was a young engineer there were senior engineers who pursued opportunities like this and had to give time up to do so.  Now it's my turn to pay it forward.  I'm feeling a bit better now.

Using the Daily Goals

A few months ago I changed how I use the Daily Goals function of the Tools.  What I did was start entering up to 3 items on each line of the things I will tackle on a given day. When I originally created the tool I would put one item per line.  That usually wasn't enough on any given day, but if I knocked stuff off my plate in the morning I would simply update the list at lunchtime.  However, last summer when I was working on multiple items, such as work, this app, and selling my house, I realized that on certain days there were lots of things to get done.  At that point I started putting multiple items on each line, though grouped such that home stuff would appear on one line, work on another, and whatever else on the last line.  Even though my workload has subsided since then, I continue to list a couple of items on each line.  This is working pretty well though sometimes I allow myself to skip a review of the daily goals at mid-day because I know I haven't completed the list.  I think I need to stop skipping the review at mid-day and push myself to review the list.  I think reviewing the list and recognizing my accomplishments will be a good thing to do.

My Prioritization SchemeCame in Handy Today

That's the one tool I've never been that comfortable with because  it just seems so arbitrary and probably a little too specific.  However, if you have followed this blog from last summer you may remember that the scheme came in handy when I was working on the iPhone version of this app while putting my house on the market and pursuing some opportunities at work.  Today, I had multiple things on my plate and was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  The prioritization matrix helped me feel better once I had things prioritized, which helped me start my to-do list a little bit quicker and I think finish it a bit quicker.  The scheme also helped later in the day when I learned  that work was going to cut into some vacation time I had tentatively planned.  Again, when I reviewed the scheme I realized what was most important at this time and that my vacation can be put off a week or two.  That helped my mood a bit.

Got Away at Lunch Today

Got away at lunch today and made time to review some entries in Mood Sentry.  My custom entries come in pretty handy these days because I have a lot of different things going on at work.  Because I've been using the app now for over a year, I tend to have entries related to just about everything that can pop up.  Also, as I gain insight into my thoughts I find myself adjusting the entries a bit, sometimes removing something that doesn't feel quite on the mark or adding a little more insight into what's really driving these thoughts.  It's handy having these on the phone, but sometimes I have a tough time finding a place to review what I have.  That's why I try to get away at lunch at go to a Starbucks where I can play with my phone like many of the other customers, in a private anonymity.

Mood Sentry Helped Today

This morning I was stuck in a bit of a funk, having a tough time getting started on one of my tasks at work.  I grabbed my phone and went to a small conference room and reviewed Mood Sentry.  I found an entry related to getting started, and how I can encounter a lot of inertia at times.  The entry made some suggestions, such as formulating simple plan, setting a stopping point, prioritizing what I need to do on the activity.  I think what helped most was simply formulating a general plan and setting a stopping point.  When I got to the stopping point, I was feeling better and just kept working away. Getting over that initial inertia was the key, and my entry in Mood Sentry (it was an Essay) helped.

Feeling a Bit Better Today

I'm not sure why.  I'd like to say it was because I made it a point to review My Experiences the first thing in the morning, set some goals, and review my Prioritization scheme, but I think there's more to it than that.  I think I get thrown off when new challenges pop up and it can take a couple of days for me to adjust my mind set.  What may have thrown me off was the shift to buying "our house" with my wife.  If you've been following this, I sold my house over the summer and we're living in my wife's house now.  We have been thinking about buying "our house" since we married three years ago and it looks like we're about ready to start the process.  I have a little anxiety about this, because it's a big deal and we haven't done anything like this together.  I'll be in for lots of new experiences along the way and I guess I'll be posting some of them here.  We'll see how this develops.

How are the Hints Working?

I've included several hints in Mood Sentry to provide guidance on how I use the app.  Many of the screens in the app have their own hints pages, so it's a good thing to check the hints out on each page.  On Android phones, you'll need to bring up the options menu to see the hints, then select the hints button.  On iPhones, you simply need to select the hints button at the bottom of the screen.  Check them out and see if  they help.

Feeling Sad Today

Just a low level, persistent sadness.  I think it's related to feeling overwhelmed by all the things I have on my plate these days.  This evening I took a moment to jot down a bunch of things I have to do related to work, this app, my volunteer activities, taxes, our plans to buy a new house, and more.  Seeing them written down like that helped lessen my sadness.  I don't know why, because the list had a bunch of stuff that was all medium to high priority.  Perhaps it was just knowing that the list was finite that helped, or that looking at it I could see that some were more important than others.  While doing this my evening reminder went popped up, so I reviewed that reminder and set some goals for tomorrow.  I took a minute to reflect on the day and realized that I accomplished a lot today.  That further helped to improve my mood.  This is an OK way to end the weekend.

It Can Take a While to Wind Down

Even though I'm getting better at catching myself when I have a distorted thought, I still get wound up at times and it can take a while to wind back down.  Today I had just such an episode in which my wife mentioned something and I got wrapped around the axle due to my typical forecasts of lost free time and getting pushed into something I don't want to do.  I had the wherewithal to mention how I felt to my wife, who assured me that my forecasts were unfounded and sympathized with my feelings.  I know I jumped to the wrong conclusion but I'm still a little wound up.  So, I'm probably still a little susceptible to emotional reasoning and will be on the lookout for thoughts driven by my anxious state right now.

Feeling on the Edge Today

I've been feeling on the edge of anxiety and depression today.  I'm not sure why.  I've gotten much better at catching thoughts early, and I've gotten better at recognizing which types of thoughts really drive my moods.  I know I'm prone to all or nothing thinking and have recently noticed that I seem to magnify the importance of things that really aren't that important.  Today I felt like something really bad was just around the corner.  I had some stuff pop up at work, but nothing really bad.  When I reviewed my entries in the app it felt like something was missing.  There really wasn't anything in there that struck home with me today.  I'll keep thinking and see what bubbles up.

Magnification and Minimization

I was ruminating in bed the other night on several things going on in my life, mostly work related.  It finally dawned on me (no pun intended) that what I was really doing was magnifying the importance of these items. Each item was an issue, but not one was important enough to warrant thinking about in the middle of the night.  Not one was due the next morning, or even the next day.  Not one would take that long to address.  And not one would be that critical if it wasn't done on time.  I recognized this as magnification and tried putting each in perspective.  I tried focusing on my current needs which at that time was sleep.  I also tried to identify how much black and white thinking was influencing my thoughts, and realized that there was some of that in there too.  Somehow I managed to get back to sleep.  I've now started a Cost Benefit analysis on Magnification and Minimization.  I'm not sure where that entry is going to go, but I'll play with it a bit and see how it develops.

The Reminders

Every now and then I'll take the time to review how I came about some of the features of Mood Sentry.  This is one of those times.  The reminders started out as pop-up notices in my e-mail program.  I programmed Microsoft Outlook to open a document first thing in the morning that had about of page of things related to the typical distortions I encounter during my work day.  It also had some suggestions in regards to how I could mitigate the impact of those distorted thoughts.  At lunchtime another reminder would pop up and prompt me to recognize what has gone well so far on that day.  There was no evening reminder until I created the app.  I mentioned in a recent post that when I created My Experiences I took the morning reminders and broke them into individual distortions with their typical manifestation and a suggested mitigation.  The morning reminder now prompts me to review My Experiences and some of the tools in the app.  It's essentially the same as that page I used to read, only a bit easier to deal with on the phone.  The mid-day reminder has grown from the original manifestation into something a little more complex.  The evening reminder was really an off-shoot of the ideal self tool.  My thought for the evening reminder was simply to take some time once the day has settled, reflect backward and then reflect forward to tomorrow and hopefully wind down before bed.  You can change the reminders to whatever you want.  I'd start with something simple.  Good luck.

Anxious This Morning

I had a meeting this morning that had me feeling anxious.  The anxiety was due to forecasting that the meeting would turn confrontational and I would look bad in front of the customer.  The forecasting was driven by reading more into an e-mail from one of the participants than was actually in the e-mail.  I think that's a form of mind reading.  What I did was review a couple of entries in my app related to interacting with others and conducting meetings.  The entry related to interacting with others points out that interactions rarely blow up, and most of the time are fairly benign.  I warn myself in that entry to beware of misinterpreting peoples actions in meetings because sometime what seems confrontational is often just the other person trying to make sure we have the best solution.  My entry regarding meetings addresses looking incompetent and participants blowing up.  Looking incompetent is something I've never encountered and people blowing up has only happened a couple of times, never with this group.  Reviewing both of these entries helped reduce my anxiety but didn't eliminate it.  That was good enough.  The meeting went well and I think was very productive.  Having these entries at my fingertips is why I developed Mood Sentry, so I have what I need when and where I need it.

Tough Day Today

It was a tough day today, but in a good way.  A new opportunity popped up in the morning, which distracted several of us throughout the day.  Because this new opportunity will probably consume much of my time over the next few weeks I tried to clear as much stuff off my plate as I could today.  I became a little frustrated while trying to wrap some things up due to the actions of others.  Oops.  I mean due to my own thoughts in regards to the actions of others.  Looking back on my day I think I was letting "should" statements drive my mood, cause me to feel anxious much of the day.  I really wanted to wrap some things up, but it just seemed that other people were not as motivated as I was.  I don't think that last statement is true, but was the result of should statements on my part.  They should have gotten the data to me when I requested it, they should have understood what each other wanted, they should have gotten to their point and moved on.  I was pretty busy and did not make the time to review my app during lunch, which may have helped me.  It's night time now, and reflecting back on my day is helping me see what thoughts drove my mood and helping me prepare for tomorrow.  I did get a lot of things done and will hammer out a few more tomorrow before this new opportunity really picks up some steam.  I'll try to make time to review the app both in the morning and at lunch.  That should help too.

Updating my Entries

I was reading through my Essays and updating them a bit for clarity and correcting minor typos.  I don't have a spell checker running on my phone, nor do I have a grammar checker.  I've mentioned a few times that spelling and grammar don't matter because as long as the user understands it, it's good enough.  However, I'm learning that as  time goes by if I don't read an entry such as an Essay for a while then I might lose the gist of the entry if the wording is not clear.  Tonight the changes were minor.  I think I had about 5 entries that I updated/revised.  On a couple of them I added a warning to myself regarding which distortions to look out for when encountering the topic of the essay.  Typically I told myself to "beware of all or nothing thinking."  Reviewing my entries for correctness turns out to be a good thing to do every now and then.

Where to start?

Every now and then I take a break from what I'm doing with Mood Sentry to review how I started with it.  I started with the My Experiences and the Reminders.  I created these based on a one page sheet I created and reviewed every morning.  Actually, there were two versions of this sheet.  When I tried to transfer those pages to the phone for the convenience of having them wherever and whenever I needed, the one page format didn't work.  It was just too cumbersome to scroll through the whole sheet on my phone's display.  I reviewed each sheet and realized that each was effectively a reminder with examples of how different cognitive distortions manifest each day, with some suggestions of how I can mitigate their effects.  That led me to create the My Experiences and Reminders functions of the app.  I found it to be a good exercise to tailor the distortion list to my needs and figure others might get a benefit from doing the same.  When I first started with the reminders I kept them short and simple, such as "think about your day and what might come up, then review My Experiences."  As I used the reminders more, I added more detail and instructions.  Note that "My Experiences" was originally titled "My Distortions."  I changed it just in case someone is shoulder surfing.  "My Experiences" just looks and sounds a bit less dramatic.  Does this help?

Work Today

I started the day out reviewing Mood Sentry with a particular meeting in mind.  I had a work related telecon that was causing me to feel a bit anxious.  The meeting was in the morning.  The anxiety was driven by forecasting that the people on the other end of the phone would be very confrontational and argumentative.  As I reflected on this I realized that part of that forecast was driven by magnifications.  In effect, anything I thought they might disagree with would turn into a big argument.  I was able to calm myself by first recognizing that there may be some disagreement, but there was a good possibility that it would be over something minor and thus not likely to blow up into anything.  That also helped mitigate the forecast of conflict too.  So how did the meeting go?  Differently than anticipated.  We did not disagree about much, and uncovered a potential issue with the program.  That potential issue generated more forecasts with me, but I was able to address it fairly quickly by contacting a person who knew more about the subject than me and was able to quell my forecasts.  Lessons learned?  Things still rarely manifest as badly as I forecast and jumping on things quickly can often resolve them quickly.  I have entries in my Observations and Essays lists that relate to forecasts and getting on top of things quickly.  Looks like I need to review these in the mornings.

The Day Went Pretty Well

I reviewed the app this morning and in particular my entries related to social events and dealing with other people.  I had an all day meeting with people I had only spoken to on the phone or just met the other day.  I'm often very quiet around people I just meet until I get a feeling for how to behave around them.  In addition, I often have a problem focusing on the person in front of me in a room full of commotion.  Because today's meeting included lunch and dinner, I started having a bit of anxiety in regards to how I would behave during lunch and dinner, the concern being that I would be too aloof.  Reviewing my entries helped by reminding me of some of my challenges in these situations.  There's not much I can do about some of my challenges, such as being easily distracted, though I did try focusing on one speaker's nose to limited success.  My mind and thoughts still wandered at times but I was more aware of this and able to catch it fairly quickly and re-focus.  Sometimes I simply don't know what to say.  When that happens I refer to a work book I have that tells me for events like this, the current situation and common interests are fair game for conversation.  That may sound trivial but it helps  guy like me.  Overall, I stressed a bit more than typical, ate a bit more and a bit worse than usual, but had a pretty good meeting.

Prepping for Tomorrow

I have a big meeting tomorrow.  My evening reminder popped up and told me to think about tomorrow, what might come up, and prepare.  Not being one to question my reminders (too much) I started prepping for tomorrow.  I reviewed my entries related to socializing and interacting with other people.  I tend to get stressed in social situations, particularly if there is a lot of commotion going on around me.  I also have a reluctance to speak up due to concern of not knowing what to say. Regarding the commotion, I can mitigate that by sitting near a corner and taking micro breaks if needed.  Regarding not knowing what to say, I think in the meeting it will be easy to know what to say because I'm familiar with the topic.  I think reviewing my entries helped but of course the proof will be in the meeting tomorrow.  I'm actually looking forward to this meeting.

Just Spent a Half Hour Reviewing the App

I just spent a half hour reviewing my custom entries in Mood Sentry.  Now you know why I have the back ground black, which is to reduce the energy used during such a long review.  This was prompted by a mild incident this evening in which people challenged something I said, which prompted an anxious feeling.  The feeling was driven by thoughts related to personalization and forecasting.  I get this feeling that I have to fix things when there is disagreement and if I don't people will think I'm worthless.  When I  got home I pulled out the app and started reviewing many of the entries I have in the tools section.  Several of them related to these thoughts, and helped ease my mood after I read them.  I took a couple of minutes to count how many entries I have.  I have about 16 Events logged, 13 Observations, 14 Essays, 3 Cost Benefits, and 3 Ideal Self entries.  Not bad.  I was looking for ones I could delete, but ended up fixing a few to clarify what they relate to.  It was good to review my entries like this.  Note that I didn't get to them all, and will pick this up again later this week.  How about you?  How many entries do you have?

My "Getting Started" Observation

Yesterday I mentioned an entry I used to get me moving on an update to the app.  I reviewed that entry and edited it a bit today. I'll share it with you.  Note that ..

"Getting started can be tough for me.  It's not just the initiation of a project or task, but even getting started on a continuing task on a given day is a challenge.  I forecast a quagmire, bogging me down to the point that I not only don't finish the task in question, but the rest of my day is shot too.

If I don't finish the planned tasks, then I failed.
If I don't get anything else done, then I failed.
If I start i'll get mired in a problem that I will need to finish.

These are exaggerations. Quagmires are rare. Most times things get done.
Getting started helps. Just set a small goal and shoot for that. This has helped in the past."

That's it.  It's simple and helps me push myself over the hump and get moving.

Tough Day Today

I'm starting to work on some updates to the app, on both the Android and iPhone versions.  There are multiple approaches I can take, and there are a lot of little things I need/want to do.  Keeping track of them all feels a bit overwhelming, and of course I have my typical forecasts of getting stuck on something (who knows what) and having a product that doesn't do what I'd like it to do.  Looking through some of my entries in the app I saw that I have some that apply to tasks like this.  One entry was called "Just Do It" and another was called "Getting Started."  What I've found is that starting on the effort helps my mood.  It sounds simple, and "should" be, but there's usually a lot of inertia for me in regards to undertaking a new and complex task.  However, recognizing that I've been here before (and will be again) and that getting started has traditionally helped defeat these thoughts helped push me through the inertia and get started.  I felt better, possibly because my mind was occupied on technical stuff.  Keeping track of things like this is what the app is for.  Having these records at my fingertips really helps.

Just Deleted All My Android Files...

I accidentally just deleted all my Android files for Mood Sentry.  Well, that's not quite accurate, what I did was delete the working directories with all my files.  Yes, I have an automatic backup program that runs constantly, and I back up every build that I put into release.  Still, there were plenty of distorted thoughts related to this incident.  It'll take me all night to correct this!  I'll never get this back to the way it was!  The backed up files won't be the same as what was released!  And a few other thoughts.  I recognized these as distortions and used logic and reason to counter them.  The released code was the easiest to back up, because I save those locally to my machine.  It's the beta versions that are taking the longest.  Even if it does take all night to complete the back up, that's fine.  It's not as if I need to be at my machine the whole time.  These things happen, though this is a first for me, but it appears that I was well prepared for just such an event.  Why don't I give my self credit for being human, recognizing that, and being prepared?  Hmmmm.

A Good Day

I had a pretty good day.  I did a quick review of my entries in Mood Sentry in the morning and another quick review of my entries at lunch time.  I had some mild porpoising in and out of a lowered mood throughout the day.  I was usually able to catch the typical suspect thoughts that relate to conflict and things getting out of hand.  I think part of my forecasts of conflict is a type of hidden discounting the positive.  By that I mean that I'm not taking into consideration the amount of coordination and communication I do to keep things on track.  Because I do that, and seem to do it pretty well, things tend to not get that far out of hand.  So why the forecasts?  I took the time to re-read those activity logs I kept for 9 work days and that's one of the realizations that popped out at me.  Not only could I see in those logs that things usually don't get out of hand, it was quite obvious from those logs that I stay in communication with my teammates and do the things I need to keep the project on track.  I wonder what else will pop out at me on further review of those logs.  You can go back a couple of weeks in this blog to see what I did on those activity logs.  I think they were a good exercise.