<aside> đź”´ Summary: I often feel like a SIMS character because I cannot remember what I need to do most of the time.

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Activity:

The steps:

Video

(Thought) process (as shown in video):

  1. Recognize the mess
  2. Proceed to clean from top to bottom
  3. Identify the items

    1. Weekly planner

      1. Need to put in the right place
        1. Need to update planner before putting it in the right place
      2. Update planner
        1. Need to think of more things to update planner with
      3. Put planner aside so I can update planner later

    2. Bag of saline spray & cotton buds

      1. Need to put in the right place
      2. Got reminded that I need to clean my piercings
        1. Took spray & cotton buds out to clean my piercings
        2. Have left-over spray that I don’t want to toss
      3. Put spray aside in case I need it later
      4. Toss the used cotton buds into the trash
        1. Got reminded that I need to take the trash out

    3. Medicine bag for cats

      1. Got reminded that my cats are sick
        1. Got reminded that I don’t know how long they will be sick
        2. Got reminded of how unprepared I am as a cat mom
        3. Got reminded of how I’m an international student and have no stable future in the States and no job and two sick cats who I have been fostering for over a year but cannot adopt because I’m unsure of my future
      2. Went to kiss my cats because I love them
      3. Put medicine bag for cat nearby because I need to use it everyday
        1. Got reminded that I will have to do this everyday

    4. Candle

      1. Inspect the candles
      2. Count the candles
        1. Realise that one candle is missing
      3. Went to find laptop to send a complaint
        1. Desk is filled with stuff
        2. Move stuff aside so I can access laptop
        3. Wait for email to load
        4. Decide to clean the piercings again
      4. Send the email
      5. Inspect another candle
        1. Got reminded that I just got it and don’t like it
          1. Got reminded that I have so many candles and yet still chose to get more and now I have a candle that I need to return and even if I made the time and effort to send it back it will be potentially discarded
        2. Find the planner so I can put down a note to return the candle anyway
          1. Move the medicine bag aside so I can reach the planner
        3. Put down a note to return the candle
        4. Put planner away

    5. New smaller planner

      1. Check planner
      2. Got reminded that I should use the planner more because I just got it and I should get my money’s worth
      3. ...

      And the cleaning spiral goes on...

      I chose cleaning because it's something I do often, both as a chore and a fun thing to do (yes I clean for fun). Besides the standard physical movements, I do think an aspect of cleaning that's becoming increasingly difficult for me to follow-through these days is the cognitive processes behind it. As someone struggling with attention span, I constantly have racing thoughts that lead me to jump from one activity to another, with every item is a trigger point for a different action, a different to-do list, a different location to go to ... I often get overwhelmed and ended up taking an extremely long time to clean, which is why I clean ... all the time .....

      While it's not the standard (or correct ...) "task analysis", I find the process of mapping and listing my thought processes intriguing. It also highlights the cognitive processes that are usually neglected during physical activities, and how it can make the activity much more difficult than it should be.