How To Be Organized With Your Chronic Illness
Chronic illness can be a hassle to deal with, to put it lightly. It can affect your quality of life in a lot of ways. Indeed it can change your life even more. As well, the impacts of chronic illness always tend to be worse if you aren’t able to manage it consistently.
It can be tough. However, being organized with your chronic illness can help to insure that your treatment standards never slip. Here are some of the ways you can being organized with your chronic illness.
Manage a visible calendar
There might be a lot of dates that are important for you to remember. Doctors’ appointments, therapy sessions, support group meetings, and the like should be made note of. To that end, keep a visible calendar up on the wall and make a habit of keeping notes on it. You might want to keep it beside the bathroom mirror to make sure you look at it every day.
Make your prescriptions easier to get
If the trip to the local pharmacy becomes more of a hassle than a help, then start to look at ways of getting the medication you need without as much help. To that end, you can ask if your local store delivers or you can visit an online pharmacy that lets you manage your treatment remotely. Just get a good idea of how long it takes for deliveries to arrive so that you can more effectively schedule your orders.
Set priorities for the day
A lot of people living with chronic illness feel like their energy is limited, so you want to make sure that you’re spending it on the right things. To that end, you should use to-do list tools that allow you to note down what you want to do for the day and then order them by priority so that you can make sure your energy goes to what most demands or deserves it first. This way, if you get a little too tired to finish your list, you can at least make sure you’ve done the most important tasks you can.
Know your limits and stick to them
When you do get to the point where pain or tiredness sets in and stops you for the day, make a note of it. Did it happen after a certain time or activity? You might be able to get a better idea of your limits and to plan around them. Most importantly, you should recognize them and avoid pushing yourself overly hard. Chronic illness doesn’t stop affecting you because you try real hard.
Keep track of pain levels
It might sound a little strange. No one wants to live like they’re obsessed with their own pain. But a lot of people have been able to find more effective and reliable methods of managing their pain by keeping note of what levels of pain they experience on a scale from day to day. This information can also help your doctor offer better pain management solutions.
Staying organized is not the only answer to improving your quality of life. However, it can play a large role. Hopefully, the tips above help you do that.
