You are just my hero. I have been trying to find the time to dive into options for several years. They seem to be so complex, fascinating and useful... Maybe one day, maybe when I am retired ;-).
It can still be like juggling running chainsaws... blindfolded.
I do it now because I'd rather gain the skill and the appreciation of how much effort it takes. I don't want to be sitting around in my 70s (perhaps with declining cognition) and thinking "Gee, I gotta get me some o' them there options just like that nice guy on CNBC." Over the last decade I've tried just about every style of investing that seems to have a chance, and the best combination of risk/reward/effort has been passive index investing. Every year I trade less and surf more.
The best ETF combination of asset class and volatility that I've found so far has been the iShares S&P600 small-cap value ETF (IJS). My favorite stock for selling options is Berkshire Hathaway's "B" shares. We've owned those for over a decade now so we're familiar with their behavior, and the company has a policy of buying back some shares when the price drops to within 110%-120% of book value. They won't buy all the shares on the market at that price, but they'll certainly soften the drop.
If you're willing to start investing 20 minutes a day now, then read a library copy of McMillan's options textbook. (20 minutes/day is more than enough, even if you find it fascinating.) I only keep enough open contracts to stay within our rebalancing bands so that if the markets go more nuts than I expected then our asset allocation won't be too far out of whack. If you're selling more than 5-6 times/year then you're probably getting greedy.
An unexpected benefit has been that we no longer agonize over rebalancing. ("But it might go up even more!" or "But the markets might not have bottomed out yet!") When we're at the point where we'd need to sell 500 shares or buy 500 shares then we sell a call or a put instead. It's a lot like having your cake and eating it too.