How Mood Sentry Helps Me (4)

I think this will be the final entry in this How Mood Sentry Helps me series of posts.  This one addresses the reminders.  On an intellectual level, I know I need to address my condition on a daily basis.  However, I often forget to do so.  When I used Outlook (at work) and Thunderbird (actually Lightning, at home), I found that with an automated reminder, I was more likely to address my condition.  There were many reasons I would forget, being depressed and wrapped up in distorted thoughts (what's the use?), being busy on a task at home or at work, having lots of things on my mind, etc.  The automated reminder on it's own wasn't enough, however.  At times, I still needed to push myself to take some sort of action.  Those self defeating thoughts can be quite powerful, but usually my better judgement won out.  Because I wrote the reminders for myself, they rang true to me.  The default reminders are mine, if you want to see how good automated reminders can be, I suggest re-writing them in your own words.  Keep it simple to start, such as "do your homework" or "review your day."  Work with your therapist on this.   I think you'll find the exercise beneficial.  Good luck.