I worked too much this week.
I know this because my body told me so in aches, pains, and canker sores.
It is ultimately my fault. I sometimes have an over-active sense of responsibility to my job, and that makes me think I need to work more to get things done.
When I was younger and didn’t have a chronic illness, I could work 12 hour days. But now, working more than 9 will render me in pain for days.
This week I worked 50 hours. I worked on my bus ride into the office, and I worked when I got home. I did not take care of myself well. I did not sleep well. I ate badly. These are my habits when overworking, and they did not help me at all.
So, I ended the week in pain, overly-tired and ready for a break.
These are the weeks when I wish I didn’t have to adult on the weekends. That someone would come in and do my laundry and clean my house and cook for me. And truthfully, I could pay someone to come to do those things for me, but I am not willing to do that at this time in my life.
So, today, I will spend my day doing chores around the house and making sure that I can take better care of myself this week.
But here is the real truth of this whole week.
I realized that I made things harder at home and did not set myself up for the right ways to help me combat the overwork. While I was writing this, I was thinking that I didn’t have balance in my life because I spent more time at work than at home. But when I did the math, I actually don’t. In a 7 day week, there are 112 waking hours (assuming I sleep 8 hours a night). If I work an 8 hour day and my commute is 2.5 hours total, that is 52.5 hours a week away from home for work. That leaves me with 59.5 hours at home.
The question I am now asking myself, “how can I better spend my time at home so that I feel better when I work too much?”. Because I feel like I am not setting myself up for success at home. I really need to audit what I am doing with my time and figure out how to streamline some things. Do I spend too much time scrolling on my phone? Too much time on TV watching? Where does the time go should now be my question. Because I want to do more fun things at home like sewing, knitting, reading, etc. but I always feel like I don’t have time. I need to adjust my internal story.
I would love to hear if anyone has figured this out and feels like they have balance in their lives. I don’t want to live to work anymore, I want to work so I can live. I want to know that there is more to life than the day-in-day-out sameness of work/home.
I now have something new to add to my changing habits. We will see how it all works, and I will keep you all posted.
I hope you all have a fulfilling week!
🙂