How do you control special interests?

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I got off of work at 8, and just watched 4 episodes of game of thrones, an amazing show. But I will only be able to get 7.5 hours of sleep (bare minimum) and didn't have much of a dinner. Another example is I was supposed to be doing school work a couple months ago and instead I decided to read 11/22/63. I read it in 5 days and it is pretty long.

I take it your special interests are eating into too much of your time?

Man, I'd be lucky to even get 7.5 hours sleep. It's more of a not being able to shut my brain off kind of thing though.

I control my special interests by turning them into research for my writing which is my no.1 special interest. I have many special interests and some just come out of nowhere so I have to put them all aside for the writing. I like having practical special interests. I haven't painted or photographed anything in a long time because I can't just do it recreationally, it has to be for something.

To avoid over or under eating I eat at usually similar times of the day. It makes me break away from my special interests so that I know I can. I'm pretty strict with bedtime schedules too.

The TV shows I watch a set aside at a usual time; Doctor Who at 7:30, Stargate Atlantis from 8:30-10pm. Other shows I can record and watch later at another designated time.

Exercise is set aside for the weekends which is also a special interest.

So you see most of what I do in my day is planned. I keep it all on a list on my phone I can tick off. I get important tasks such as washing and buying groceries done first. Usually I feel restless if I don't get these done first.

I let them do what they want. I end up spending the entire day on the one thing and neglecting everything else. I still get schoolwork done, though. I do well too. I just get bored with it is all.

Good idea, make a plan (work schedule can slightly change week by week, so not a completely set schedule). It is one thing to make a schedule, and another to use it though. The follow through is just as big of a problem. I should limit myself to 2 hours of tv a day (not including sports haha), maybe a little bit more on days off of work.

Yep. Last night I read until past 1 AM, then got up before 6.30 AM to get ready for work. Basically I couldn't bring myself to stop reading and switch off the light until my eyes were nearly falling out. Reading is a "brain.must.stay.active" kind of thing. I hate stopping and doing nothing - I have to be absorbed.

If interests begin overtaking me and I want to do something different, I usually watch old television shows that I loved as a child such as Star Trek or Dark Shadows. Or, I might read or force myself into some other activity which I usually end up enjoying. But this is when I really want to take a break from my interests---usually the interests feel so relaxing and wonderful that I don't want to get away from them. However, I realize I need to spend quality time with my family---so I try to do engage in interests in moderation.

Make a daily schedule / routine with time set aside for each of the things you've been neglecting (eating, sleeping, homework, etc.) as well as for your special interests... and then make absolutely sure to stick to it; even if that means setting alarms or timers to signal you to move on to the next thing on your schedule.

I don't. I usually spend the entire day on them and as a result, I don't do as well academically as I'm capable of doing.

Yep. This is mostly what I do. I live with three other people I always have to adjust my schedule for, but I try to stick to generally the same thing every day, give or take an hour or so. The only thing I use my phone for is the collection of alarms that I have going off every few hours so I actually get something constructive done besides reading about tornadoes or serial killers or whatever else I'm obsessed with. Without my alarms I don't think I would ever go out of my room.

A day job helps.......or anything/anybody else that will nag you or pressurise you to take your nose out of whatever it is. Though people are generally far too polite about this and even spouses won't necessarily do much to avoid becoming Warcraft widows or whatever.

I often set alarms to remind me that I didn't intend to do my special interests for so long. Usually I can disengage once the alarm has gone off. Not that it's pleasant.

It helps if the final thing I do before stopping is to summarise the info I'll need when I resume....part of the problem with my adherence to the task in hand is that I don't relish the prospect of trying to get back to where I was when I left off.........so I'm more likely to stop if I feel I have a strategy for re-engaging.

When I consider stopping, I try to listen to my excuses for not stopping, and if they don't hold water, I try to override them.

Social activities often take my interest away from the more nerdy things I do. Though I've long felt that social activities are a kind of special interest for me. If so, then the problem isn't really solved unless I can stop socialising when I need to.........no problem there AFAIK. Usually I have to fight an urge to run away and hide anyway, when I'm doing social stuff, and there's also my extreme reluctance to do anything that might come over as invasive.....I feel that the other people are granting me their attention, and I don't wish to wear out my welcome, so I will usually back off if i suspect that they've had enough of me for now.

I guess I could be accused of analysing social encounters too much.......I spend a lot of time doing that....but I suspect it's necessary, to make sense of what I've been through. I can't do it like an NT and just act on all the social ramifications, I have to sit down and work them out the long way.

One thing I twigged, some years before I knew of AS, was that I'd best make sure my hobbies had some kind of useful outcome. I'd noticed that many of my activities had been so narrowly-focussed that I'd completely overlooked easier and much quicker solutions that would have spared me months of isolated, painstaking labour. So these days I always try to ask myself, "Is there an easier way? Realistically, how important is the result? Am I the best one for the job? Could I use my time better?" So I recommend cultivating a mentality that looks at what one is trying to do and why, rather than just taking it for granted that the task is simply to do or die. And frankly some of the goals I set myself are nothing like as important as they seem when I first get the idea. I often have a weird feeling that the idea I'm currently having is the most important one there's ever been, but the truth is that it's all pretty finite stuff.

It can be a tad alarming to question one's special interests in this way.......I think we often love them every bit as much as we'd love a person, so it hurts us to see them as unimportant and to think of leaving them. I feel empty when I've completed a nerdy project, because it's over.

I think it also helps to be aware of whether you're doing the special interest for the result or for the pleasure/relief of the process itself. Often with us it's the latter, though it took me a long time to realise that......I thought I disliked the work itself and only wanted the results, but it's not the work I dislike, it's the feeling of life slipping by while I hide away that I hate. Once you know that you're mainly in it for the catharsis, you can manage it more like you would manage the use of a recreational drug such as alcohol.....most people master that, but an unlucky few become its servant.

This is something I'm struggling with a lot. Weekends = running. Because I'm unemployed, I'm getting help from a company who help people back into work. Apparently, work must come before my running / other interests and I must be willing to work weekends. I'm beginning to wish I'd lied and said it's disability related.

I feel no desire to control the things that make me the happiest, unless I'm talking to the less understanding NTs in my life, than I keep quiet about my special interests.

It's exactly the same for me, too. I make no attempt whatsoever to control my special interest, though I tend to keep quiet about spending so much time on it. I even feel sort of guilty if I DON'T spend huge amounts of time on my SI.

I don't try to control my special interests. I embrace them.

Me too!

Wait, you can control your special interests?

Must be nice. Not sure I would even notice if my house was on fire while I am absorbed in what I'm doing.