Hello everyone and welcome back! I hope this week has been nice to you so far. Things have been calming down for me, which is kind of nice. Now I'm in the waiting portion of everything I was dealing with, but that's better than panicked and looking for something. For now everything can go back to being normal and I can return to being happy I only work 2 more days this week after today.
Yesterday was a product day for me, in that I made a new pile of jewelry to add to the someone small-ish pile of stuff I'd already done. I'm hoping to have enough so that when the next craft fair comes around in November I won't have to divide up my time between NaNoWriMo and that. Also I just realized that it'll be in November, and the whole lack of time I'll have to do anything else. I feel so smart...Anyway, it got me thinking about all of the stuff I've been doing lately and how hard it is to find time for all of it. I've mentioned good work/life balance before, but what happens with the things in the middle that are kind of work, but are also kind of fun? That's what I'm going to try and talk about today.
Everything needs balance, I keep mentioning that, and I've probably made some of you absolutely sick of it, but I keep saying it because it's so true. You can't function for very long on the schedule of wake up, eat, go to work, come home, sleep, and then wake up and start the cycle over again. Soon you get burned out and then all sorts of other bad things start happening. So you cram in some kind of hobby in there to break things up, but it's hard finding time to do it. Eventually let's say that hobby becomes more than just a hobby, like a passion or something. You are so focused on this that it eventually becomes like a second job, except you enjoy it. Everything is good and fun until you want to do something else too, then somewhere your brain decides that you have to make a choice; work and do the thing you like that's also kind of work, or work and do this completely new thing.
The problem that I've seen is that people will get to this stage and somehow go back to just working and doing nothing else. Yes there are some that literally have no other time, but we are going to be looking at a health issue at that point. Unless you are one of the lucky few who get to work their dream job and honestly love what they're doing, chances are your job isn't the best place in the world. You may even like your job, but eventually you get to the point where you think you should be doing something else too. For me my job is not one people generally enjoy (collections), but I've had a lot worse so I don't mind it. My "job" is my writing, because I want to get that series done and I enjoy doing it, but I don't really get paid for it, and my hobbies include drawing, gaming, and (apparently) jewelry making. The last one is relatively new, and while I do like it, I couldn't do it every day. I get these bursts of inspiration and will sit and do that for a few hours at a time, but then not do it again for weeks.
The thing you need to do is balance your hobbies with your "job" in order to not go crazy. This may seem incredibly difficult, but there ways that you can do it. The easiest is to just designate a day for each thing. The brain likes schedules, so this might be a lot easier to do for some people than others. You can also set it up so that there are things you only do at certain times of the day. For me, at least currently, editing happens on my lunch break, drawing happens throughout the day (so I don't go crazy), and my time at home is to relax and do nothing unless I have a specific video game or want to make something. For the most part my drawing doesn't happen at home (mostly because there's just no comfortable way to do it), and the writing happens at work, at least editing does, since it's something I can do while on lunch fairly easily and I don't necessarily have to worry about being stuck somewhere. Now when it comes to the actual writing portion of my stories that will happen pretty much anywhere I am, especially in November, but that has been cut down significantly due to wrist issues that I don't want to risk making worse.
The way that I have things 'organized' now make it a lot easier to handle with work/life balance and it still leaves some room for just deciding I don't want to do anything that day. I don't feel bad about it, and there's no reason to feel bad. I've seen what only working does to people and it makes me really sad that they don't feel like it's something they can get out of. There really is hope, and it may take some work, and your brain will tell you the break in pattern is scary, but it is being a jerk and you will be so much happier once you do that. So please, while you're doing all of the work ever, and then all of the writing ever, remember to give yourself some time just to relax and let your brain unwind even if that means just playing Tetris for a few hours.
Thanks everyone for stopping by today! I'll be back on Friday with my normal review. For now please enjoy the rest of your week, if you're in the US, please have lots of fun and be safe tomorrow! Also, as a reminder 'The Light Rises' is available this month as part of Smashwords' Summer Promotion and is FREE all month! So please go check it out and tell everyone about it!
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