Consider that you have 10 units of energy when you wake
in the morning. Every activity you have
on your “to do” list takes one unit.
Going for a walk, preparing supper, managing the laundry, responding to
emails, attending an appointment, completing personal care, and having coffee
with a friend all drain your battery.
Some of these activities are necessary, some can be put off, and others
are enjoyable. So what if you spend one
unit of energy looking for your phone, that bill that needs to be paid, your
agenda, or those new runners you bought yesterday? What activity will come off your list when
you have spent your energy to find something that with some organization would
have taken you no time at all? Maybe you
will call your friend to cancel, or order supper in again. Maybe the laundry will wait to tomorrow, or
those emails will just keep accumulating. But this is unnecessary because you
had the energy, it just became misdirected.
Often the focus of occupational therapy becomes helping
people to organize their activities, their stuff or their time. Schedules and consistency are keys to helping
people to understand the size of their battery and the amount of units each
activity takes. This can be difficult
when working with clients who did not need to be organized before an injury or
illness, but the necessity of this following cannot be ignored. Even
small steps to help people to be more organized can have a huge impact.
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