Work.
Work slammed me with its huge hammer. The last three weeks were so overwhelmingly intense that I stopped believing in work-life balance for good. There are people who can stretch a 24-hour day into a 36-hour day, and still manage to get some sleep. I am not one of them. I stress. I feel overwhelmed. I want to scream. In fact, I have to shamefully admit that I did take out my stress on Beaker. A few times.
My past three weeks looked like this:
7:00 am – work
7:30 pm – drag myself home and half-heartedly listen to Beaker who is trying to talk me into going to the gym
9:30 pm – slowly digest dinner while falling asleep on the couch and wondering if I ever will be able to write a blog post again
11:30 pm – clenching jaws and grinding teeth in my sleep.
Life.
Chores. The perfect epitome of my weekends. People who have energy to do chores such as cleaning, grocery shopping and laundry during the week are admirable. At night, after a long and intense day at work, I don’t have any vigor to start up my computer or pick up a book. Most of the time I fall asleep on the couch.
I spend most of my weekends doing chores. On top of it all, we decided to get ourselves a new couch, and update our bathroom. It was fun but oh-so-exhausting. In the end, not much got done at home, my blog got abandoned for sometime and my sanity was in question due to stress.
Balance.
None. I barely squeezed in some exercise because it does, after all, relieve me from some stress, and I grind my teeth less at night. I did not write a single word in the last three weeks, and I missed it tremendously. Writing is not just a part of me, it is also my creative outlet. It relaxes me, takes my mind off work, deadlines, and stress.
What I Learned from Being Slammed with a Hammer
- Prioritize as much as you can. Don’t waste time on unimportant stuff.
- Eat healthy food, stay away from junk food. Junk food will increase your unhealthy cravings of sugar and/or salt. Oh, and it will make you fat and sleepy.
- Find your healthy stress outlet. For me it is always shopping! Not too healthy as far as a bank account goes, but it is definitely a huge stress reducer.
- Unload your weekends from chores. Do something you really enjoy. Do not bring work home unless you really have to. I wish I would run less errands and spend more time
shoppingwriting. - Spend time with your family and be really “present.” I noticed that I was not listening to Beaker, focusing instead on my own thoughts and plans, and steps to take to meet work deadlines, and clenching jaws, and grinding teeth.
How It is Going to Affect This Blog
Do not panic! I am definitely around. I am not going anywhere, even though sometimes I might vanish for a few days. Feel free to email me, or put a shout out in Twitter.
However, if you like a rigid posting schedule, then you are out of luck. There will be no specific schedule for posting. I will be writing and posting whenever my crazy schedule allows it. I’ve heard that it means I am breaking one of the rules of blogging. Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass: Rules are meant to be broken.
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I can understand what’s currently you are going through. Where it hurts more is when you don’t see an end of it.
I am sorry to hear that work has been intense and that chores have been grinding you down. But do you know what I say about ‘the balance’ when this happens to me? ‘I don’t need balance; work is my life.’ (Supposed to be a joke and whilst not very funny helps me to kepp going. Or remind myself that to talk about balance one ought to have life!’
Hope things will improve soon.
I often felt that way at my old job but luckily my new job is much better. Hopefully things will calm down for you soon.
Hang in there Aloysa! Times like these you need to forget about balance and simply survive – rebalancing can come after. Right now I’m sick and trying to stave off the fullblown flu so I’m in the same get-through mode…
I hate flu. I hate being sick. Hang in there as well! It shall pass.
That really stinks! Is there a reason why your work load has increased so much. Not sure if this is an option, but have you thought about hiring help around the house? I know it’s expensive, but it might be worth it if you are very stressed.
I got more responsibilities added, one assistant hired and I was hoping my work would be better. But somehow it all got even more complicated. I hope by the time I am done with training our new person, I will be able to move on.
Sorry to hear that. I hope you’ll still make it to Denver. See you there!
No Denver for me this year. 🙁 I am very sad. But I really, really hope for the next year.
I don’t understsnd why work is so stressful in this century when we have so many techno advancements!?? In the last century when I started work we had tea breaks and proper lunch hours.
The world’s gone crazy…resist it all you can!
You can’t depend completely on technology. 🙂 Life would be easier and we, probably, would be unemployed.
Tis true. Give us our proper lunch breaks. We aren’t livestock. We are people. Last thing I need is to dread putting some half microwaved food into my mouth.
We have gone through something similar before and we have really felt the aftermath from it. The past number of months we have been working really hard to arrange our time in a productive yet reasonable manner where we can still get what we need done but also still have time to relax and look after ourselves. It isn’t easy and takes some time but you eventually find the groove. I find committing a our time during the week to what really matters and nothing helps really works well.
Sorry to hear that. It can all build up at once and there is no shame in letting some things go, but I’m glad you aren’t giving up on the blog. BTW, do you use a mouth guard at night?
I started to think about a mouth guard this past month. But I decided that while I can handle my stress and my jaw is not too bad, I’ll wait.
You know what’s funny? I just went to a recruiting event for consulting, and one of the partners said his best piece of advice is to outsource everything you can so that your weekends are free to just relax and have fun. He’s got a small army of service members helping to keep his home life running smoothly. Sometimes it’s worth the money to keep your sanity. I hope the hammer lets up on you soon!
It is definitely a possibility. But I just know myself. I would feel guilty spending money on someone cleaning my place. I can do it myself, right? 🙂 For free. I just need to find time.
I’ve been there, and it sucks. My outlet has been to think about “what’s the worst case if I leave”. That line of thinking gets me to see the bigger picture and calms me down. Easier said than done sometimes though!
I’m with others-can you outsource the cleaning/chores? Your sanity has to be worth it! I hope it all lets up on you soon though.
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Sorry to hear. Could this be a sign to move on and get another job? Hang in there!
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