Tag Archives: busy

One Busy Week And One Unscheduled Week (or I Guess This Is Balance)

Posted on April 7, 2023 | Comments Off on One Busy Week And One Unscheduled Week (or I Guess This Is Balance)

Last week for me was a bit of a busy week. I had some really fun things that I got to do and I was around a lot of people. It felt like a week I would have had before the pandemic. And I was surprised that I wasn’t feeling burnout after being so social since that’s something I’ve experienced before. I was just living my life and loving having things to do and being around others. But I guess my new way of balancing is having one week on and one week off because this week has been the exact opposite.

I knew this week might be a tough one for me because I was expecting to have my pain and nausea kick in. And it did do that right after I got home from Santa Barbara (I was so glad that I wasn’t feeling horrible while I was with my family). And this month, it has been extremely bad. I have been taking all the medications that I have available and it hasn’t been taking the edge off. I’ve been working a lot from my bed because it’s uncomfortable to sit up at my desk for too long. And I’ve been using my heat pad so much that I’ve been turning on my air conditioning even though it’s not hot out, I’m just getting overheated from having the heating pad on me for so many hours in the day.

I’m glad I didn’t have anything really scheduled for this week because I just wouldn’t have been up for doing it. And I’ve also been exhausted so I would probably be tired if I were doing something and not enjoying it the way I should. As much as I’ve been trying to get enough sleep each night, I’m not sleeping well and I can see that in the app I use to track my sleep. I’m tossing and turning all night and I feel like I’m dragging all day. It’s not that I’m going to bed too late, I’m just not sleeping when I should be.

I know that this week is not necessarily normal for me. I also know that every month I can have a week or two like this. It’s always just frustrating and annoying when they are as bad as this week has been so far. I don’t have a lot of motivation to do stuff, so I have to put my focus on doing things that I have to do like working. But anything outside of my required things each day seems like too much effort. I’m trying to not be upset with myself for acting like this because clearly, my body has needed this week to not be a social one. But when I was so happy last week with how being out in the world again made me feel, this can feel a bit depressing.

I don’t have any plans for this weekend yet, but I also don’t want to make any plans until I know how I feel. I might need this weekend to rest and relax or I might be craving being social again and will make plans at that point. It’s so hard to know what I’ll want to do when I don’t know how I’ll be feeling. And I also worry because I could be feeling ok one moment and then I start experiencing really bad nausea again. So it can be better to lay low instead of making plans and having to cancel them. And hopefully, it won’t be that much longer before I feel ok again and I can get back to trying to make some fun plans.

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Default ThumbnailMaking Busy Days Busier (or I Guess I Like To Maximize Only Certain Days) Default ThumbnailSeeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts) Default ThumbnailBusy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit) Default ThumbnailIt’s Another Short Post Type Of Week (or Sorry About This) Default ThumbnailBeing Social And Out And About When In Pain (or Of Course This Would Happen When I Am A Bit Busier) Default ThumbnailNot Much To Write About This Week (or Busy But Not Doing Much)

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Being Social And Out And About When In Pain (or Of Course This Would Happen When I Am A Bit Busier)

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Comments Off on Being Social And Out And About When In Pain (or Of Course This Would Happen When I Am A Bit Busier)

I haven’t been busy in quite some time, at least as far as my social life goes. I’ve been busy with work and things like that, but I haven’t been doing a lot after work and usually just lay low most days. I am trying to work on fixing that, but it’s not as easy as just saying I want to be busier. And of course, whenever I want to start planning things, I just lose motivation when I’m done with work for the day because I’m usually pretty exhausted since I get up so early. But I’m trying and sometimes it works for me.

But even though I say I want to be busier, there are plenty of times I’m so grateful that I don’t have much to do outside of work. Whenever I’m dealing with pain and nausea, I really want to just stay in bed and rest when I can. I do still go to my workouts and I still work, but I don’t do much else. I work from my bed or from the floor when I need to. Being able to move and work where I’m most comfortable when I’m not feeling well is just one of the reasons I’m so grateful that I work from home.

And of course, getting busier just happened to line up with when I’m dealing with a significant amount of pain and nausea.

I’ll share in my posts next week about what I’m doing, but in normal times I wouldn’t consider myself that busy. But I have a few things happening that cannot be postponed so if I want to be a part of them I have to do them now. And when I knew that this week was likely going to be a bad week, I was hoping that maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Sometimes I expect a lot of pain and nausea and it really doesn’t kick in that much. I will always have some that I have to deal with, but when it’s tolerable or manageable with medications, it’s not that bad. I’m uncomfortable and maybe a bit awkward if I’m breathing through a wave of symptoms, but it’s nothing like when it’s really bad.

Fortunately, even though my pain and nausea are pretty bad right now, it’s not the worst I’ve dealt with. I am able to get out of bed and the symptoms are lessened by my medications instead of feeling like they are the same whether or not I take something. But I’m uncomfortable and sometimes the best way to feel better is to be in really weird positions in a chair or on the ground. That’s not going to be possible at the things I’m going to. But I’m going to do everything I can to feel ok when I go out and am around other people. At one thing, I’ll be around just my friends so if I’m really not able to feel ok I can let people know and they will understand. But I still want to feel ok so it’s not a big deal or something that I have to work around.

At least I’m not so busy that it will be overwhelming and it’s only a few events I need to worry about. And they aren’t back-to-back days so I’ll be able to rest in between them and maybe those rest days will help me feel better for the next time I have to be around others. And of course, when all my symptoms should be ending, my calendar is pretty empty outside of my usual obligations. But maybe I’ll be able to add a few more things so I can continue working on doing more outside of my house and I’ll be more up for it when I know I’ll be feeling ok.

I know that I’ve been saying I want to do more things and get out of the house more and I also know that pain and nausea can be 2 weeks a month of my life. So it shouldn’t be so surprising that they happen to overlap. I do wish it wasn’t like this, but I’m going to do my best to make the most of the fun that I have coming up!

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Default ThumbnailSleeping Away The Day (or Sometimes The Pain and Nausea Are Just Too Bad) Default ThumbnailEnding Some Pain and Starting Other Pain (or At Least I’m Stocked Up) Default ThumbnailDealing With The Pain (or Not All Pain Is The Same) Default ThumbnailStill Feeling Sick (or This Will Be Another Short Post) Default ThumbnailNeeding To Take Care Of Myself (or Not Ignoring All Pain) Default ThumbnailDoubling Up On Pain (or Physical and Mental Pain Together)

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A Long Short Week (or Ready For The Weekend)

Posted on February 24, 2023 | Comments Off on A Long Short Week (or Ready For The Weekend)

It seems like when I have an extra day off of work because of a holiday, that somehow makes the week seem longer. I don’t know if that is because I usually use that extra time to get more things done than I normally would or if I just feel off because I mix up what day it is. But it seems to really hit me hard and I feel like I need to recover more from a short week than a long week.

I know that I am also still probably used to having Mondays off from when I had my old job, but I should be used to this schedule by now. And when I get a Monday off now, I get to have 2 days without work instead of just 1. It doesn’t always feel like I just have 1 day off a week since I only work 3 hours on Saturdays, but I still have to wake up early in order to work. I just get to have extra time to be lazy or do other things after work.

I know that this short week also was busy with a lot of things. Over the weekend, I drove to and from Santa Barbara. I have done that drive a bunch, but it’s still at least 3 hours of driving in a day. Maybe I had more endurance for driving when I used to commute to work, but now it seems like it’s a decent drive. I do keep myself entertained by making sure I have good podcasts to listen to, but it’s still a good chunk of time. I also had my parents here and even though I don’t have to necessarily entertain them, I still try to be a good host when they are here even if we are just meeting for dinner and doing work around my house like we did this time. And hanging up things on my walls and doing all the house projects on Monday made that day seem pretty busy and not a normal day off.

I’m glad it’s Friday even though I still have work tomorrow. But I’m ready to have a bunch of hours when I can relax and just get things back in order. I still am catching up on housework from when I was sick, so I want to get that done. I also have a few more things to put away after all the projects we did earlier in the week. But I also want to make sure I take time to rest and relax since it will be Monday morning before I know it.

I originally had some plans for this weekend, but they were canceled due to the big storm we are supposed to have. I’m not upset about not having plans since I probably shouldn’t have made them in the first place. I would prefer to not be out in the rain unless I really have to. And if bad weather is what I needed to remind me that I should take it easy this weekend, then I guess that’s not a bad thing.

Hopefully, I can really take some time to get things and myself back to normal before Monday and I have to be back to a busy work week. And if I don’t get as much done but I get more time to relax, then I’ll consider that a good thing too. As much as I know I need to get some things done in my place this weekend, the bigger focus should be resting so I can be back to my full energy soon. And nothing that is on my list of things to do this weekend can’t wait until later, so I won’t allow myself to stress about what I need to do if that’s going to prevent me from resting.

And even though next week will be a full work week and I could easily be more exhausted by the end of the week, hopefully taking the time this weekend to rest will have me ready to go and I won’t be as tired as I have been this week.

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Default ThumbnailShort Weeks Can Feel Really Long (or I’m Glad It’s Almost The Weekend) Default ThumbnailHaving Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out) Default ThumbnailLack Of Plans (or A Lazy Weekend) Default ThumbnailShort Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week) Default ThumbnailTime For A Short Christmas Post (or I Hope You Have A Great Holiday Weekend) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy)

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So Many Meetings (or I Can’t Do Everything)

Posted on January 13, 2023 | Comments Off on So Many Meetings (or I Can’t Do Everything)

Maybe it was because this week was the first full work week of the new year or maybe there’s no reason for it, but this week I had so many different meetings I was supposed to be a part of. Every single day, I had at least one meeting on my schedule. Some of these were for work, some were for acting, and I also had an HOA meeting. And because there were so many meetings and I had to make sure I didn’t neglect other parts of my life, I just couldn’t make it all work.

Of course, my work meetings took priority. There is a lot going on right now so I’ve been a part of various meetings to plan and discuss things. Some of these meetings were planned in advance and some were only planned a few minutes before it was supposed to start. I’m grateful my job is mindful of my time and when I put in my schedule when I’m not available, so these all worked within my regular work hours. I know that being a part of some of these meetings is a sign of trust that the executive team has in me and shows my seniority within the company, so I didn’t take it lightly when I was added to a meeting. I did a lot of listening and not as much talking since some of these meetings were mainly higher-ups and I was there to either add a little bit more information or just to hear what is coming ahead.

We also had our belated work holiday party which was a Zoom meeting this past week. That was fun and we had different competitions such as best cocktail/mocktail and best Zoom background. I did make a fun background, but I didn’t win this time. But that’s ok since I won for Thanksgiving.

Also on my schedule this week was an HOA meeting for my condo. This isn’t something I have to go to, but I want to attend as many as I can so I can know what’s going on. Since this meeting is in the evening after most people are done with work, I was easily able to add it to my schedule. And since we just changed HOA management companies recently, I really wanted to hear what everyone else was saying. I haven’t noticed a huge difference with the new management company, but I haven’t had to do much through them since the renovation. And it’s always good to hear what is happening with the HOA dues and what things are being considered. There wasn’t too much discussed in the meeting, but there are some things coming up that I’m aware of now. Mainly dealing with the recycling and upcoming compost (which is required now for us) as well as some possible changes to the equipment in the gym. They also discussed that the roof is in good condition which is important with all the rain. I wasn’t too worried about the roof, but it was good to hear that I really don’t need to worry.

But the meetings I had to be ok not attending were some union/acting meetings that I had on my schedule. I really was looking forward to these meetings and they had been on my calendar for a while, but then other things came up that I couldn’t get out of or had to prioritize such as my work meetings. I know that this is a normal thing that so many people deal with, but it was still frustrating when I worked hard to try to attend meetings that were planned in advance. But I know that people understand when something comes up like this or if someone had to miss a meeting due to an emergency or being sick. But I still didn’t like it.

Having a week like this past week isn’t normal for me and I’m glad it’s not since having so many meetings can be stressful and overwhelming. But I made it through the week with only a few missed meetings and I know for the next few weeks my meetings will be much more spread out so this won’t be something I should have to deal with again for a while.

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Default ThumbnailStill Learning More About Being A Homeowner (or Observing Another HOA Meeting) Default ThumbnailMissing Some Union Meetings (or Even Virtual Meetings Don’t Guarantee I Can Go) Default ThumbnailMore Virtual Union Meetings (or Hopefully We Will Be Back To In-Person Meetings Soon) Default ThumbnailMy First Real HOA Meeting (or This Felt Like A Union Meeting) Default ThumbnailMaking Sure I Make It To Union Meetings (or Sometimes I Can’t Help My Schedule) Default ThumbnailLots Of Virtual Meetings (or Virtual Union Meetings)

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This Month Feels Like It’s Already Done (or I’m Not Going To Get All The Things Done)

Posted on December 9, 2022 | Comments Off on This Month Feels Like It’s Already Done (or I’m Not Going To Get All The Things Done)

I know that December just started, but at the same time, it feels like it’s almost done. I had a lot of things that I wanted to get accomplished this month and I’m already starting to wonder if I’ll have the time to get them done. I’m sure I’m overreacting and I’ll be able to get things done, but since some are time sensitive I know that I probably will have to accept that some things will either need to be done later than normal or just not done at all.

I think part of the problem for me has been that I haven’t been feeling well except for a few days. This is mainly due to the side effects of my medication, but I do think it’s getting better. I’m still having a lot of side effects most of the week, but at least this week it seems like the end of the week is better than it was last week. It could just be in my imagination, but I’m trying to believe that I’m going to not have to deal with side effects as long as some people have. I know it will still affect part of my week each week for a while, but if things do get better that will help me to find some more free time to get things done.

I also have an unexpectedly crazy week with work next week. I can’t get into too many details, but I’m helping to cover some work that needs to be done that normally isn’t a part of my tasks. And this work will require extra hours and potentially working at odd hours. I am going to be paid more because this will require me to work more hours than I do right now, but I know that the limited free time I have now will be even more limited next week and possibly the week after. Fortunately, this will be a one-time thing, so I won’t have to worry about this being a part of my regular life.

And with the holidays coming up, I feel like that limits when things can be done because I have to work around things being closed on days that I would typically go to do them. Also, some of the things I want to get done are connected to the holidays and I don’t want to send things to people late. I have had something I needed to mail for 2 weeks and I just haven’t had the free time during the hours the post office is open to go and do it. I’m hoping I can find some time this weekend after work, but it depends on how crazy things get since the post office has limited Saturday hours.

I have a feeling that the week between Christmas and New Year’s will feel like it’s not as fast since it’s always a weird week. But if I want to do things like get holiday cards out, I try to do them before the holidays start. But this year, I think that’s going to have to be something that is late since I haven’t even started to design the postcards that I want to send out. I know it’s not a big deal if they are mailed in January versus December, but I really thought until this week that I had plenty of time to get it done, and then I realized that I really don’t.

I don’t want to end this year feeling stressed about getting everything done, so I’m really going to work on prioritizing things and seeing what I feel better about putting off a bit longer. And I might end up surprising myself and actually getting more done than I expected. I have 3 weeks left this month and I know that means that so much can happen and change. But at the same time, I do need to recognize that the last 3 weeks have potential issues with me being able to do everything that I planned and I want to be prepared for that so I’m not disappointed if that ends up being my reality.

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Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailEnjoying A Bit Of A Half Week (or This Week Is Always Odd) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?) Default ThumbnailSometimes It Feels Like One Thing After Another (or Having To Miss Things For My Own Good) Default ThumbnailFeeling Useful Feels Good (or I Need To Be Productive) Default ThumbnailThe Longest Week (or Having A Regular Work Week Again)

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Not Much To Write About This Week (or Busy But Not Doing Much)

Posted on January 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Not Much To Write About This Week (or Busy But Not Doing Much)

This past week has been a pretty busy one for me. I’ve been doing a lot of work stuff and I also have been busy trying to get my condo ready to hopefully start the renovation soon. Even though it was technically a shorter work week with having Monday off, I feel like I have been playing a lot of catch up with time. And because that’s how my week has been going, I hit a bit of writer’s block for this post.

My days this week have been filled most of the day. Either I’m working out early in the morning or I’m doing errands and tasks before I start work. For example, yesterday before work I had to be at the condo because I was selling the old appliances. And selling these appliances took up significantly more time than expected. I had buyers say they were coming and failed to show up. Or one person said they wanted them, showed up, but had no way to move them and seemed surprised that when I said they would have to move things themselves that I was telling the truth. I didn’t expect that it would take up this much time, but between posting ads online, messaging with potential buyers, and trying to meet those buyers; I used up a good chunk of my free time this week.

And this week at work has been exceptionally busy and crazy. This is when things tend to be crazy, so I was a bit prepared for that but it always takes a lot out of me. So if I had a bit of free time after work, I usually was decompressing a bit before moving on to the next thing I had to do that evening. And I felt like this week I had an endless list of things I had to get done but also wasn’t getting anything done. I stayed up later than I wanted to and didn’t get much sleep, but at the same time there was nothing happening. It was a weird week this past week to understand where the time went and what I actually did.

So I’m hoping this weekend I will be able to reset a bit and catch up on things. I know I won’t be fully caught up by Monday, but I need to get things checked off my to-do list and have less that I have to do during the week. And maybe if I can get things ready for the week over the weekend, I will have more interesting things to write about in my posts next week.

But for now, this is going to be a short post. I don’t have a lot other than busy work to write about this week, but at the same time I feel like I have nothing to say.

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Default ThumbnailBusy Work (or It’s All Coming Together) Default ThumbnailBusy Busy Busy (or Triple Job Day) Default ThumbnailJust Being Lazy In The Rain (or Not Much To Write About) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy) Default ThumbnailEnjoying A Bit Of A Half Week (or This Week Is Always Odd) Default ThumbnailMaking Busy Days Busier (or I Guess I Like To Maximize Only Certain Days)

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Forgetting To Take A Moment To Take It In (or Lots Of Back To Back Projects)

Posted on October 29, 2021 | Comments Off on Forgetting To Take A Moment To Take It In (or Lots Of Back To Back Projects)

Usually, I try to plan out what I’m going to write on here in advance. I don’t always do that, like when I’m experiencing writer’s block or something else that is making it hard for me to know what to write about. It does still shock me sometimes that I have continued to keep this up as long as I have. But there are other reasons why I end up writing some of my posts at the last minute.

This post is being written much closer to when it goes live than I would like it to be. And that’s because my life has just been a bit crazy lately. And I know that being busy is good and almost everything keeping me busy are positive things.

There have been things keeping me busy with the condo hunt/buying process. I feel like there is something new I have to review or agree to every day. And I do want to make sure I know what’s going on, but for some things, I just have to trust my parents and realtor because I don’t have as much time to read everything before needing to agree to it. I will review everything and see what I am signing, but I know I should read all the details too and I try to do that later when I have a chance.

I’ve also had a bunch of work-related projects keeping me busy. I rarely have downtime at work anymore because I’m busy doing something when I’m not focused on my primary work responsibilities. For my customer service job, I’m working on coming up with ideas on how we can take what we have to do and be more efficient. I’m looking at different procedures that we can implement and what things we do in multiple ways that can be condensed down to one way. And for my data entry job (which really isn’t data entry anymore), the work that I was done for the first part of the current contract is done and now I’m helping with more social media work and planning. Social media work can be surprising and take more time than most other things I work on. I do enjoy it, but I can easily spend hours working on something that seems simple.

And then there are the normal things that keep me busy that add to my schedule.  I don’t really do things I don’t want to do, so I try to be careful of what I have in my schedule each week. But just the things I want to do can sometimes be from 6 am-7 pm each day. That’s a lot of time each day and usually, when I’m done, I’m really done for the day. I don’t feel as motivated to do things after work because I’m tired and want to relax.

But at the same time, being this busy is also making me forget to celebrate the little wins that I have in my life. Everything with the condo has been a win so far. The things I’ve done in my workouts can be wins. The things I’ve been able to get done outside of work can be wins. But I just haven’t really had the time to sit back and reflect on those things until now. Sitting down to write this post forced me to think about what’s been happening lately. I didn’t know what to write, and I had to think back at what’s been going on. And everything I have thought about has been something really great. And I don’t know if it hit me until I wrote it out.

There have been so many benefits I’ve gotten out of writing this blog. And I guess recognizing the positives in my life is another thing I’m gaining.

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Default ThumbnailA New Reason To Do Big Cleaning Projects (or Putting Other Projects On Hold For Now) Default ThumbnailStill Doing More House Projects (or Just Trying To Find Busy Work) Default ThumbnailHaving A Book Nerd Moment (or The Little Things That Make Me Smile) Default ThumbnailHiking And Off-Roading (or Taking Advantage Of Every Moment Of My Vacation) Default ThumbnailTrying To Stay Busy (or Doing Lots Of Random Things) Default ThumbnailSkipping Over An Anniversary (or Forgetting But Not Forgetting)

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Keeping My Calm (or So Much At Once)

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Keeping My Calm (or So Much At Once)

Even though I just have posted about new job stuff and how I will be working more hours, this post has nothing to do with that even if it seems so. I actually haven’t made any changes just yet, so it’s probably better that I’m having this happen before it does.

I have a problem with being overscheduled, busy, and stressed and then swinging hard in the other direction and being bored. And right now, I’m in a time of being busy. And it’s just the way that everything happened to fall and not something I could have prepared for. I’m trying to stay calm and remember that I don’t have to do everything myself and it’s ok to ask for help. But it’s hard to do that when I want to feel capable and not held back.

Work stuff has been crazy lately, but that might actually be easier when I’m working more hours. I try to clear all the work before my shift ends, and soon I will have twice the time to accomplish that. I don’t want to rush because that’s where mistakes can be made, but I always feel bad if there are things I didn’t get a chance to take care of when my shift ends and someone else’s begins. And I’m aware that I take on a lot more of the work because I handle all the overnight stuff, but I still don’t want the person doing the second half of the day to have anything left when we switch even though they have said it’s ok if that happens.

At my other customer service job, things have been crazy just because that’s how this time of the year goes. We also are almost fully open with about half the staff. So that’s tough for us all and I only am working minimal hours there. So I know I’m lucky but at the same time I still want to get everything done since I am not the person in the morning and don’t want the others to have to do work I couldn’t get to.

And I’m in the middle of election season for my union. This is stressful to go through but so rewarding. And in the past I had a bit more free time to work on things. There’s also the added change with not doing anything in person and having much more done online, which makes my job a bit more than in the past. But I’m working on my time management as much as I can so I have the time to do all my responsibilities or realize early enough that I need help so someone else can jump in.

And I’m sure the fact that it’s been very hot here recently and I’m pretty isolated in my house isn’t helping. I’m not going out and being social outside of my workouts and the rare hangout with a friend. I know I need to take mental health breaks, even if they are just something inside my house. I need to make sure I don’t hit burnout because I know that it will affect me harder than normal when I don’t have ways to mentally escape.

I know that this is temporary and I will likely be feeling bored again. But until that happens, I just have to take care of myself and make sure that these extreme moments don’t become too hard for me to get through.

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Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailBack To Normal (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailMissing Out On Some Fun (or Flexible Time Management) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

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Posted in Acting, Tough Stuff, Work

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Fully Using My Work Time (or Having A Job Where I Feel Productive)

Posted on June 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Fully Using My Work Time (or Having A Job Where I Feel Productive)

Since graduating college, I’ve had a lot of jobs in many different fields. Overall, most of my jobs are in the customer service sector (even as a tour guide at a film studio), but the jobs themselves have varied. But most recently, I have mainly had direct customer service or data entry jobs.

Some of these jobs have been jobs where there is a lot of downtime because my responsibilities are mainly when a customer is reaching out. My box office job is like that. We can be extremely busy at times, but there are other times when we only have a handful of customers and several hours with nothing to do. That’s why my data entry job has been perfect for me. I have the ability to work that job between customers. And the data entry job is one where I have no downtime while I’m working, but it can also be done on my own schedule so I can do the work whenever I can fit it in.

When I started my new customer service job, I wasn’t sure if it would be a job where I was always busy or one where I had a lot of downtime. And it has changed from the time I started almost half a year ago until now. When I started, there was a lot more downtime because my focus was just on customer support so I was really only busy when we had customers reaching out to us. And that worked for me because I was new to the job and needed the extra time to keep learning the different processes and not feeling rushed or stressed when trying to help a customer. But as I’ve been at that job, things have been getting busier and busier.

Now, besides my regular work, I’ve been taking on some extra projects. I’ve been working on helping to organize certain work systems. I’ve been working on helping to create a training manual for other employees who aren’t as familiar with how the customer service team works as well as future customer service employees. I’ve built some systems to help us track clients and other things we need to track. I’m really being kept busy during the hours that I’m scheduled.

All of these things are being done during my work time, so I’m not doing anything outside of my work hours. But I’m now really busy for the hours I’m scheduled to work. And I know this is pretty normal for most people. Having a job like my box office job with a lot of downtime is the weird situation. And I know I’m lucky that I have had a job like that where I could do other work during work. But it’s also nice to have a job where I am busy during my work hours. I like feeling like I’ve accomplished a lot each day. I can see progress being made in the bigger projects and not just that I’m answering the same thing all day long (like at my box office job where I am always saying “the sold out show is sold out of tickets”). And I do still work some hours each week with my box office job where I do have that downtime. So there is a balance in my life.

As much as I complain sometimes about being overscheduled or too busy, it is nice to have a job that makes me busy. It helps to have a clear delineation between work time and my time. When I was mainly working my box office job, when I finished work I could stay on my computer doing a lot of the same things I was doing between customers. But with my customer service job, when I’m done with work I might still be on my computer to do other work, but there is a much clearer line between my work time and non-work time. And that’s something I have needed for a long time. Especially lately since I don’t have much planned in my life after work time each day.

Just like I always do when I write about being happy to be busy, I’m sure I’ll hit a time of burnout and being overwhelmed. And that is a bit more in my control because I can take more time on some of the extra work projects I’ve taken on so I don’t feel rushed or overwhelmed. And I also have gotten better about being an advocate for myself and speaking up when things are getting to be a bit much.

But at least for now, I’m so grateful to feel productive like I do now. This is a feeling that I haven’t had in a while and it’s just another thing that makes things feel a bit more normal and less like I’m isolated and not doing much with my life.

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Default ThumbnailBack To Back Work Fails (or Attempting To Be Productive) Default ThumbnailBusy Busy Busy (or Triple Job Day) Default ThumbnailBack To An Old Job (or It Feels New and Familiar At The Same Time) Default ThumbnailWork Work Work (or Another Very Part Time Job) Default ThumbnailFeeling Useful Feels Good (or I Need To Be Productive) Default ThumbnailAnother Job Through A Friend (or Excited To Do Job Training)

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Almost Getting My Lazy Birthday (or Staying In And Staying Busy)

Posted on August 13, 2019 | Comments Off on Almost Getting My Lazy Birthday (or Staying In And Staying Busy)

My goal for my birthday was to be able to do nothing and to finally relax a little bit. Life has been stressful (but good stressful for once) and I have been hitting burnout a lot lately. I knew that if I didn’t take a break for myself soon, I was going to hit a really bad breaking point and I didn’t know what would happen if I got there. I don’t know if I would hit a really bad low and it would take a long time to get out of it or if something worse would happen. I just knew that I didn’t want to get there so I had to try to do whatever I could to prevent that.

On my actual birthday, all I had scheduled was my workout and then work. I said I had a plan to try to do nothing but I wasn’t sure if that was going to be able to be accomplished. For the next week and a half, my life isn’t completely mine. I have to work hard for my slate for the union election and I am so proud to get to do that. And I know that when it is done it will be worth it. But that also means that I might start the day with one plan and then an hour later a huge amount of work gets thrown my way and I end up spending the rest of the day working on that.

My birthday wasn’t as crazy as it could have been, but it did get pretty busy. I had several things that I had to work on that were needing to be done quickly. If I could put things off to the next day (or a few days later), I did. But some things had to be done that day or that hour and I had to get them done. When people called me to wish me a happy birthday, I was usually on the phone for only a few minutes before I had to get off the phone and back to work. I felt bad that I couldn’t talk to people longer, but everyone understood how hard I was working and how important this election is for me.

I finally got to relax a bit around 7 pm that night. I spent most of the evening laying in bed just being lazy. I needed to decompress and I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I read a little bit. I watching some random YouTube videos on my phone. I did some random daydreaming and reflecting on my birthday and my life. There were a few moments where I was feeling a bit lonely since besides my workout I spent my birthday alone. But I also made that choice and I know that if I spent my birthday with other people that it would have been overwhelming. I needed the alone time to recover and do some self-care. It was the best thing for me that day.

It wasn’t the most celebratory birthday day, but it was exactly what I needed to do. I had a lot of work that I had to get done, and I got the relaxing time that I desperately needed. I still want to have some sort of birthday event, but I don’t know when that will happen or if it will happen. I can’t imagine it happening before the election is done, which isn’t until the end of the month. And by then, I might not feel like doing anything too big. I had big plans for what I wanted to do, but I think that motivation got zapped out of me. I’m a little annoyed that I didn’t plan it sooner so I could have done it, but maybe I’ll feel motivated again when I’m not as crazy busy every day.

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