Habit 1: General Orderliness

Again, this is not a high-level view. It's a practical recipe, an intelligent system to blindly obey.

An orderly daily routine. Goals:

• A morning routine 

•  A before-work routine 

•  An after-work routine 

•  An evening routine

1. A morning routine. Goals:

• 7 1/4 hours of sleep, ideally.
• Drink a glass of water
• Meditation for 5 minutes.

• Wash face, brush teeth, fix hair.
• Hang clothes to dry.
• If Ady's already up and in the bathroom -> fix bed, sweep floor, water plants.

• Breakfast. Aim for an egg-and-butter shake. If you have time, try something else.
• If trash hasn't been taken out in 2 or 3 days, do it.
• Out the door.

2. A before-work routine. Goals:

• Go to cat. 
• Give her food.
• Clean her toilet.

• Hang out.
• Play - pieces of paper, long, dangly stuff.
• Out. If you have time before the bus, go to store, buy stuff, consulting your list.

3. An after-work routine.

• If you haven't gone to the cat - go.
• If you haven't gone to the store, do.
• If you go to the cat and you haven't been to the bar in a couple of days, go.
• When you're at the bar, pay special attention to Ady, don't talk to other people too much, see if you can get her to leave early.

• If there haven't been flowers at home for a couple of days, buy some.
• If it's salary day, pay bills, pay phone, pay Internet.

4. An evening routine:

• If you haven't fixed the bed or swept, do. If there are clothes in the living room more than a couple of days old, wash them.
• Take care of kitchen - clean up plates, wash them.
• Clean up fridge, take out old food if any, soak accumulated water.

• If you haven't cooked in the last two days, do. Cook vegetables, cook meat, make nut bread, make tahini, make a salad, make coconut milk.
• Prepare stuff for breakfast tomorrow.
• Dinner - a calm meal, not doing anything while you eat.

• Hang clothes to dry, load another washer.
• Fold clothes, put them in their place.
• Fix the corridor - shoes out of the way, clothes on the floor, etc.

• If you haven't buffed the table in a couple of days, do.
• Summarize in writing what you've read today. A page of summary for each twenty-five read, or whatever you remember of it.

• Evening shower.
• Fix the bed back.
• Wash any newly stacked dishes.
• Read or talk to Ady.
• If clothes are done before you go to bed, hang them out to dry, load another washer to be taken care of on the morning.

• Talk to Ady, massage.
• Sleep.

Now read through all of these, going through them imaginatively in your mind as you do. 

Imagine a home free of hassle, of clothes lying around everywhere, a flower in a vase on the table, which is empty, the kitchen clean and uncluttered, bed neat, you refreshed after a shower,all utilities paid, soaps, shampoos, toilet paper, etc., all stocked, floor clean, your mind clean, purposeful, streamlined.

Imagine what it's like now. Clothes everywhere, leftover packets of rahmen all over the kitchen, crusted, ugly plates, flooded fridge, overflowing disgusting trash bin, Stephan rolling around an unmade bed, cigarette-filled ashtray on the fucking floor, the table dirty, pieces of paper and plates on it, dust devils on the floor, shoes kicked off every which way, the terrace in a horrible mess, clean clothes down on the floor with the dirty ones,  clothes moldy in the washer.

Imagine a morning and an evening when you're all actually in a decent mood, talking, not freaking out about what to wear or not having soap or toothpaste or a shampoo or a clean towel, where you pay attention to one another instead of looking at various screens.

Now imagine what it's like now. Rummaging through dirty, crumpled clothes to find on that doesn't look too terrible, squeezing out the last drops of toothpaste if any, everyone in a different room, everyone eating at the last possible moment, scrambling for whatever they can find in the fridge.

If I never get this done, I'll remain an adolescent in my head forever. The noise to song ration in my relationship will continue to worsen. I will never be able to think of myself as a responsible adult capable of doing things for others. 

Rewards: After each subcomplex of tasks is done, you can reward yourself with some reading. It should be fiction or something game design or writing-related, to prime yourself for the habits down the line. Or you can start contemplating further tasks and get them off your head, to prime yourself for GTD later on.