Lately I've been struggling on my days off. I'm in a constant state of wanting to do everything and to stop + take a chill pill. It reminded me of some of the conversations I've heard on constant busyness, work-life balance, etc. In the past, I think we were all taught that being in a constant flow of doing and go-go-go is the normal. If you're not running at 120% 24/7, you're not doing it right. I've always been a perfectionist and driven by nature, however I've also learned that can come at a price.
My problem comes from finding a balance between both. I recently heard someone say that there really isn't such a thing as "work-life balance." Essentially that you can never have them equal or keep them in balance. Sometimes, you'll need to give more attention to work or your career, others to your personal life. In a lot of ways, I suppose this is true in the literal sense. I've always looked at it more as having designated times for both respectively, but I think that's because that is where I struggle. It's too easy for me to blur the lines-- when I'm "off from work," a lot of the time I'm still doing something work related. At one point, I felt like the only productive or fulfilling things I was doing were work related. Don't get me wrong- I love it. I have always been career oriented and I'm a big believer in working hard, but I also found myself neglecting some of the fun things I wanted to do.
When I would come home, I'd be left feeling drained and unmotivated to do anything else. That would spill over into my days off and when I finally took a break by not doing anything work related, I would feel guilty and bad about not being productive.
That's sort of where I'm at again now. I've definitely made some progress this year when it comes to balancing work, however I still find myself always wanting to do a million different things. If it isn't work related, it's laundry, blogging, reading, etc. Maybe that's just part of adulthood? I can never seem to get everything done. The same cycle starts over with feeling overwhelmed and wanting to just stop. The stopping then leads to feeling guilty about not being productive or getting things done. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm constantly see-sawing back and forth with this same dilemma which means I'm *hopefully* learning some valuable life lessons.
One of those that I have accepted (but still keep doing) is putting too many things on my to-do list. If you also struggle with this-- you can only do so many things at once. For whatever reason, my brain still tries to keep adding things on but all this ultimately does is leave you less productive and stressed out. Today I had the day off and like always, wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I always think I can slide in a little bit of this here, a little bit of that. When the time comes, I either don't know where to begin OR I actually need to take the time to just relax and detox. I caught myself starting to feel guilty and like I had wasted the day. I then decided to look at what I had accomplished instead of what I hadn't. For me, that included: treating myself to breakfast, running a few errands, changing my sheets + bedding, getting ready, laundry, tiding up + working on this post. In the midst of all that, I also spent some time taking it easy and had dinner with my family + JJ. Focusing on what I had done made me realize the day actually wasn't a waste and in a way, I did have my cake and eat it too. While I might not have gotten every little thing done, I still did a few "productive" things on my list as well as relaxed and enjoyed myself in the nothing.
My personality constantly wants to do everything NOW and all at once, however I'm also learning the to-do list will still be there tomorrow. Of course that doesn't mean to push off critical or deadline tasks, however it's OKAY if cleaning out the junk drawer has to wait a day.
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