It's Been How Long??

It's Monday night and I'm tired. Not because I've been up since 5am (today I actually slept in) or because I've been staying up all night studying (the latest was around 1am because I just had to get that thought down!) I'm tired because I haven't yet got the balance right between studying, working at my casual job flipping burgers and frying fish, time with my family, and me time. I've tried to cut down my hours at my job with limited success, I've mainly swapped my hours to the weekend to free up week days for study, workshops etc, but there's a reason for the weekend. And it's not to fit in all the work or study you didn't get done during the week. It's to recharge your batteries. To refresh your mind and body. To laugh a lot, maybe drink a little, enjoy time with family and friends. It's to sleep in and binge crappy TV, to wander an open air market or take a novel to a park.

The weekend is to turn off your alarm clock, play games on your phone, enjoy a long coffee while doing a crossword. To not look at the time. So what do my weekends look like? Last Saturday I did a split shift at work, making sure I got my bins ready for pick up in my break. Got home around 8.45, late dinner, cuddles with the rats and the cats before going to bed. Sunday? Planned to spend a few hours at the Sunday Market with my kids and some friends, but got called in early to work so that was cut short. Got home about 5.30, cleaned the house, more cuddles with the rats and the cats, dinner, TV, bed.

People's weekends all look different of course. My weekends 10 years ago, 20 years ago, when my kids were little were very different. I guess people in different income brackets have different weekends to mine. Different even to my ideal weekend. Some people's weekends are in the middle of the week, maybe their days off aren 't together. What's important is the chance to recharge. What I'm realising is that if I don't have at least a day for me, I'm not as productive for any of the other days.

Looking at the date, I realise I'm technically not even two full months into my PhD. My three year PhD. I have about 4,000 words on my literature review and have read hundreds of thousands of words written on my topic. I need to establish a weekend. I doesn't have to be Saturday and Sunday... I know that's not going to happen. It doesn't have to be consecutive days, maybe not even two full days a week. But I need to recharge my batteries, refresh my body and mind, so I can be more productive. But right now I think I'm going to get some dinner, watch some TV, cuddle the rats and the cats and let this simmer in my mind overnight. Tommorow is a new day, and who knows, I'm sure its the weekend for someone!