Saturday 25 February 2012

# 56 Rat Race

These days I find myself on a constant cycle of worrying I'm not getting enough work done and it's getting irrational.

Generally Uni is a 9 - 4.30, five days a week affair. I try to switch off to it in the evenings and at weekends when I catch up on personal projects, client work or admin / website updates / blogs / promotion etc for my business. Project work is slotted in between doing the dinner and other household stuff I can't avoid. Weekends are much the same. Invariably I will have a couple of photoshoots per month which fall at the weekend. Let's say for arguments sake that takes up a day. Last weekend I worked solidly. One was a shoot, the other was finalising my dissertation for my degree.

Flicking back through my diary I have worked out that the last time I had a day that didn't involve doing something business or Uni related was 28th December. I had 6 days off for Christmas and was staying with my parents.

So why do I insist on convincing myself I don't work hard enough? I suppose it has something to do with not having any defined cut off points between home and work. This is a dangerous thing to lose sight of. I don't do a day job that I walk away from at 5 o clock. When Uni finishes my business begins and that's the work I do from home and where the blurry edges are. I don't have a 'work' room either so I can't just walk away and forget about it. I feel like I'm treading water a lot of the time, as I pick up and put down work continuously giving that feel of never quite getting anything done.

I've promised myself a week of genuine downtime at Easter when Uni is shut. By this time both of my collections will have been completed. I realise that once I finish my degree mid May there won't be any lines to blur. Work will be whenever and whatever comes my way because I will be entirely reliant on it for my keep.

Getting used to a committed work ethic now should put me in good stead but I am hoping I can find the means to take Sunday as my 'day of rest' and recharge my mental if not physical batteries.

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