Having a group is only half the battle, the other half is getting that group together when one person works odd hours, another has chronic illness with lots of medical appointments, and a third has a bitch of a commute during the week so often can't get home in time.
For years we had games every Friday and Sunday, all it takes is a couple of people changing jobs to completely disrupt that setup.
Watching it at 1.5 speed helped immensely.
Sure they do, NTs do a lot of stim activities, the difference is that they don't need to stim in order to remain calm and centred, they can just do it because it's fun.
Yes, putting an electrical appliance in the bathroom is weirder than putting an appliance that requires both power and plumbing in the room that always has both power and plumbing.
I also buy second-hand whenever possible, and try to fix things instead of replace them, and for the stuff I'm buying it's usually more expensive, not less. Especially when big stores offer free delivery on just about everything while your average ebay user obviously doesn't.
Recent example: I got a shoulder strap for a clutch bag and the clasp on the strap broke. It was only missing a tiny spring, so I found a tiny spring online and repaired it. The strap cost £5. The spring to fix it cost £6 including postage. But it worked!
I had lessons from various people every summer for the first few years after I turned 17 (age you can start learning on public roads in the UK). I'd get to "test standard" each time on the mechanics of it, but navigating other drivers was too much so I never actually took a test, and never intend to.
I'm now in my 30s and have structured my life around not having a car. My house is on a 24-hour bus route into town where I work, and walking distance to most amenities. My husband does have a car, so he can drive us places that aren't on public transit routes (such as our parents' houses) but the vast majority of the time I'm doing my own thing while he's at his job an hour's drive away.
I don't even seem to have a special interest. It's like I'm doing autism wrong.
Suddenly that music video makes sense
No idea whether it's their reason, but anecdotally I've found it has a few benefits. If coordinated properly it's significantly easier to train new(er) staff, it improves cross-organisational understanding to overhear other departments' conversations either at desks or in break rooms, and it stops people becoming isolated pockets of knowledge and culture because they only ever see or interact with the same one or two people.
In my guide to “declutter your home“, I usually recommend tackling decluttering projects a little bit at a time. Even just 15 minutes a day. However, you may be in …
Thank you very much :)
Fabulous, thank you!
Alas, "[t]his content is not available in [my] country/region", any chance of a mirror/archive link?
This is why I concluded that I can't live in shared housing. Thankfully my social phobia isn't triggered by living with a partner or I'd be fucked as far as affording housing.
I don't have any useful advice or way to help, but you're not a burden and you're not the only one to feel this way. Sorry if that's not exactly comforting.
My instinctive response is that it's a terrible idea. While having no expectation to mask is great, it seems to me that gathering a group of people who generally struggle to take care of themselves and their environment and who have very low tolerance for certain environmental stimuli and a deep need for other environmental stimuli is a recipe for chaos.
I attend a local autistic adults zoom group every other week, and it's great for support and understanding, but if I had to be in the same room as one of the other members their stims would give me a meltdown. I over-empathise emotionally, an autistic friend has almost no emotional empathy, as a result some of our interactions do not go as intended. Multiply these kinds of issues with having to effectively live with eachother and I just don't see it going well.
Given the context of the article, the alternative suggestion isn't "set up your own server" but "use software that doesn't require a server", which sidesteps most of that list.
There is definitely an underlying assumption that everything is infinitely replaceable or accessible, especially for books and media, which is simply not true. But starting from the assumption that everything is valuable is just as bad. If you can identify where the value actually lies for you it can help.
E.g. for me the thing that's valuable is knowing what I thought of a book when I read it and how it made me feel, because my memory is very poor. Now I've started keeping a digital notebook with a private review of each thing I read, so I only have to keep books I want to read again. Which is still a lot, but much less than it was.
That may be your experience, my partner and I use it co-op on every game that has it and watch each other play singleplayer, so it's almost never out of the dock. I imagine many families with multiple kids and not enough budget to get everyone their own would do the same.
We broke the Anima system in half with overpowered characters. Not that it holds together very well normally. One mage character boosting the tank's strength high enough to lift a mountain and creating him a giant tungsten lump, another mage opening a portal directly above a bad guy's tower, apply tungsten to tower at great speed. No more tower. The GM was too amused to be mad that we wrecked his whole plan. We used the same trick to launch a necronomicon into the sun (or near enough). Also so many magically created artefacts, creation mages are just bullshit. But I got away with it because I made some for everyone.
Because the number of people who won't buy it because of the LCD screen is smaller than the number of additional people who will buy it if it's $X cheaper at launch.
I'm so glad you're feeling validated, it's so miserable to be adrift in thoughts of "what's wrong with me"!
Stimming is one of those things that everyone does to an extent, since it's basically just "doing things that feel nice". The difference for neurodivergent folks is that it helps us emotionally regulate in a way that neurotypical folks don't need, so we tend to do it a lot more often (or feel extra stressed/anxious/irritable).
Clutterbug Quiz - Your Organizing Style
Organizing isn’t one size fits all, there are four different organizing styles. Take the quiz and discover what style you are.
Sentimentality vs "Historicity"
This may just be a "me thing", but a decluttering-related musing I'd like to share in case it resonates with anyone else.
>'what is "historicity"?'
>'When a thing has history in it. Listen. One of those two Zippo lighters was in Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket when he was assassinated. And one wasn't. One has historicity, a hell of a lot of it. As much as any object ever had. And one has nothing .... You can't tell which is which. There's no "mystical plasmic presence", no "aura" around it.
\- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, pages 65-66
The Man in the High Castle is an excellent, weird book, but I've noticed that the concept of "historicity" is present in much more mundane places than the kind of cultural artifacts it's used in reference to in the book. Like in family heirlooms and some of my own "sentimental" items.
An example, I have a "sentimental trinkets" box on my bedside table. Inside, I had a toy that I played with as a small child over 25 years ago, but I didn't have any specific memories attached to it. I just knew I'd had it decades and moved continents with it, so I assumed it was precious. In hindsight it wasn't sentimental at all, it was the historicity that made me keep it. So I stopped keeping it.
Another toy in that box that I'd also had over 25 years has a specific memory and story attached and makes me smile when I think about it, but it's not even the same toy that features in the memory. And because the primary association is with that story and that memory, I don't think of it as "a toy I've had since I was 4", I think of it as "the toy bought to replace the identical one I lost in the ocean and picked up a live crab while searching for it".
As a lover of museums and archeology I don't think historicity is a bad concept to value when it's on a more grand, cultural scale, but within one lifetime I've learned to appreciate the distinction and let go of things that aren't actually valuable.
"Please stop telling me to leave my comfort zone"
Our comfort zones are there to protect us, even if productivity specialists say otherwise
I came across this article from 2018 and it really spoke to me as a late-diagnosed autistic only just learning what "comfortable" feels like.
Some of the Major Principles of Decluttering - A Tidy Mind
Thinking of embarking on a decluttering journey. A Tidy Mind Professional Organisers & Declutterers share major principles of decluttering
Uncluttered Simplicity - 3 things that will sabotage decluttering efforts
Has life gotten in the way of decluttering? Here are 3 things that will sabotage even the best decluttering efforts and what you can do about them.
And advice on how to combat them.
Caroline Winkler - "home organisation for chaotic people"
While the video is titled "home organisation" it has some good decluttering tips. Also I just love her.
"New Retired Me" on his journey to declutter
This video was linked in the declutter community on squabbles.io, and makes for good inspiration. Plus he's just quite nice to listen to.
[Self-promo] Declutter community on lemmy.world
Because I miss the subreddit.
[email protected] https://lemmy.world/c/declutter
Decluttering Resources & Challenges
The goal for this list is a collection of resources and challenges that can be used/done for free, without having to sign up for anything like a mailing list (though you can always use 10 minute mail for the downloads that require an email address). That said, the sites linked will have paid options and/or mailing lists that they would no doubt very much like you to join, so be warned.
Resources
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- The KonMari method
- A Slob Comes Clean and how to declutter without making a bigger mess
- UnfuckYourHabitat and UFYH's weekly challenges
- A space for everything - zoning your home and 365 things to declutter from your home and life this year - Organise My House
- [UK only] What can I recycle?
- 120 things to remove from your life - Be More With Less
Challenges
----- The 30-Day Minimalism Game - The Minimalists Challenge overview: Starting on the 1st of the month, you declutter a number of items equal to the day of the month. Day 1 = 1 item, Day 2 = 2 items, Day 3 = 3 items etc. for 30 days (or as long as you can keep it up). After 30 days you would have decluttered 465 items. The gentle start eases you into the decluttering and builds as your own ability to recognise what you can declutter improves.
Another popular option is to do it backwards, i.e. Day 1 = 30 items, Day 2 = 29 items, Day 3 = 28 items etc. Some people find this easier as you can get some quick momentum with the initial enthusiasm for the challenge, then as things to declutter become harder to find you don't need to find as many.
Yearly Decluttering Challenge - Nourishing Minimalism Challenge overview: Over the course of the year, declutter the same number of items as the year, so for 2022 that's a target of 2022 items. Starting on 1st Jan that would be just under 6 items per day.
Nourishing Minimalism encourages you to print off a tally chart* and be flexible with filling in the boxes - if something is particularly difficult to declutter it can count as more than one, if a whole pile of things is too much to count just block off an estimate etc.
\*The chart linked in the blog post requires providing an email address, which I assume adds you to their mailing list though I don't specifically remember. I've not had my email address passed to any 3rd parties by Nourishing Minimalism, but it's not hard to come up with your own way to record your progress so likely not worth it if you're not interested in the blog.
The Decluttering Cure - Apartment Therapy Challenge overview: For 14 days, do their prescribed task, alternating between decluttering a room/category and more abstract "do something that will prevent future clutter" tasks. The idea is to sign up to the mailing list and receive an email with each task, but the link above is to the "catch-up" page which lists them all, saving you from the spam*. See also: The January Cure for a 20-weekday decluttering/home management challenge starting on 1st Jan and The Holiday Cure for a cleaning-before-Christmas version.
\*While I've not had my email address passed to any 3rd parties by Apartment Therapy, they did automatically sign me up to their own mailing list after the January Cure ended. And again after the Decluttering Cure ended, despite having removed myself before. If you're not interested in being signed up for daily emails, don't give them your address.
Decluttering Bursts - Be More With Less Challenge overview: Grab a trash bag and a donate box and working for 60 minutes find 100 things to get rid of. The linked blog post has suggested item counts from suggested areas for inspiration, and includes digital items in the suggestions.
30 Day Category-Based Challenges
Challenge overview: There are a lot of these. In each case the challenge is to declutter one category each day for 30 days. These often work best if you decide on a period of time to declutter each day (e.g. half an hour) as the categories won't all be similar amounts of effort which could cause burn out on tricky days.
The ones listed here are just those I've found where the category list is freely accessible.
30 Days to Minimalism - Pick up Limes (& video) The list is in a PDF (no email required) which contains finer descriptions and "tips" on most days. The categories cover both physical and non-physical things, and are individual-focused, no family/pet categories.
30-Day Declutter Challenge - DIY Candy The list is in a PDF (no email required). The categories in this list are less granular than the Pick up Limes list, and include Pet Supplies and Kid-related days. The linked blog post also lists a number of decluttering approaches with pros/cons, which isn't a bad resource in itself.
30 Day Decluttering Challenge - Simple Lionheart Life The list is in the linked blog post. Categories are more individual-focused, but the list breaks down some of the potentially larger categories.
30 Day Declutter Challenge - Balance through Simplicity The list is in the linked blog post. The categories are individual-focused and a mix of physical and non-physical and "instructions" that apply beyond just the day in question. Could be useful for habit-forming.
30 Day Declutter Challenge - List Obsessed The list is in both the linked blog post and a PDF (no email required). Categories include Kids and jump around various home areas more than some of the others here.
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