Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Sunday Blues


It's been a fairly busy weekend; a Friday night wedding, helping with the weekly house cleaning Saturday morning, celebrating my nephew Trevin's 4th birthday at lunch Saturday, a violin recital with my niece Katrina later Saturday afternoon. We went to church Sunday morning (including helping with the coffee and donut table) and then I mowed and winterized the lawn in the afternoon. Right now Lisa is out with a few friends having tea so I have some quiet time while I wait for the dryer to finish with the current batch of laundry.

Weekends like this leave me a little down. Sure we got a lot accomplished and spent time with family, but all the activity didn't leave me much down time. Being an introvert that means I didn't really get a chance to recharge my batteries this weekend. With Monday lurking around the corner I find my brain is shifting back into work mode...too soon. The result: I have a case of The Sunday Blues.

There's a lot of stuff going on at work right now. Busy is always better than having too much time on your hands, but it has been non stop for far too long now and it's more than having too many projects. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do and being able to make videos that have an impact in the lives of children around the word...well, that's pretty amazing. A friend of mine wrote about doing what you love in his blog a few weeks ago and it is true in so many ways. The issue I'm facing right now is that work has become consuming. It's challenging to not start thinking about, talking about, worrying about...you get the idea.

So, what can I do? Or, more directly, what do you do to keep your work from consuming you, from beginning to define who you are? I'm looking for suggestions/ideas that might help me find ways to break the fever of my Sunday Blues.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Always have something on your to do list that you are looking forward to. I dont think it matters if it is tomorrow, a week or a month from now.

Ric Sieben said...

could be helpful...I'll give it a shot. thanks.

anyone else have any thoughts?

Becky said...

I leave my work at work. When I leave for the weekend, I don't think about work until I'm back on Monday morning. I keep very strong boundaries between my work and personal life.

Ric Sieben said...

Thanks, Becky...I've tried that but it doesn't work very well for me. Work keeps sneaking its way back into my thoughts which usually results in finding its way into conversations. I feel like I'm becoming one dimensional.

Amber said...

Hmm...Can you take a vacation? When I took my camping vacation this summer (with no laptop or phone for a week), it was soo good. I remembered that I exist as a person outside my job. It's so easy to forget we are not our jobs. Maybe even just a 3-day weekend away with no communication devices?

Ric Sieben said...

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until Thanksgiving weekend, but I may be able to take a day somewhere along the way with the comp time I get from my upcoming trip to Kenya. Thanks, Amber.