How to stay productive when you have a chaotic schedule?

A tip I've been given too is to divide ur planning into three categories: things I need to do (sleep, eat), things I have to do (work, school,etc) and things I want to do (hang out, exercise). Another tip was that you should plan and schedule out habits you want to create so that's another way to think of planning if you have an inconsistent schedule, think: what habits do I want to foster and not give up on? And just be aware that saying yes to something means you are saying no to something else, so priotize what you are willing to use your time for and what you are not

The toughest thing I find is (when you’re achieving things) a lot of exterior forces start messing with your schedule. This year I bought a house, got a dog tried to house train him, changed jobs etc.

I think it would be great if employers let employees choose their own hours, like tell the employee they need to work eight hours out of the day, but let them pick what those hours are going to be. Maybe instead of working 9-5, some people might rather work 11-7. I think it's kind of strange that bosses not only insist on telling employees what they're going to do on the job, but also insist on telling them when they're going to do it. Of course, maybe people could even choose to work less than eight hours out of the day, and those people would just have to except that they would get paid less.

Since going back to school and no longer having a steady 9-5 job, my schedule has been all over the place. Between weird class schedules, working nights driving for Uber on the weekend (and during the day whenever I happen to have time and it's at an hour when it's worth it), and currently doing contract photography work over the summer all over the city, there really isn't much room for consistency. Not exactly fun times for my autistic brain that really, really... REALLY prefers stability and routine. I can't really say I'm mastering the chaos, but I've personally made an effort to take a step back from my calendar and offload to a task management app (Things 3, in my case). Being able to separate "intent to work on something" from hard deadlines is pretty handy. Rather than rigidly scheduling in "do laundry" or "take out the trash" in my calendar at a specific time, I throw it into Things so I know I need to do it at some point during the day (or tomorrow or whatever) when I have a moment. Put more simply, I'm accepting the chaos and working around it, rather than trying to beat it into submission.

I work different hours every day with some 14 hour shifts, night shifts and then regular 8 hour days so it's pretty chaotic, in a hospital so I have to use a monthly plan instead of a weekly one. I find nights the hardest, I'm not really able to take naps or fall asleep anywhere anytime like some people can. No escape though, as it's my life choice career