Monday, October 15, 2012

The Challenges of Juggling

It’s early Monday afternoon and I am at the office.  I started work at 5:30 AM today and, given that it is now 1:30 PM, it dawns on me that there is a reason I feel tired.  I’ve already worked an eight hour day.  Five of those hours were spent weaving in and out of meetings, which can be exhausting in its own right. I am fighting, but not for much longer, a compelling urge to go home, take a nap, and then try again after an hour or so.  That is one of the drawbacks of starting so early in the morning - but the time you get into the afternoon you are pretty much finished, at least as far as anything detailed and creative goes.
I find that the early morning hours are the best for me.  It is then that I feel at my intellectual and physical peak.  It would be nice if I could figure out some way to have multiple mornings through the day. Perhaps a rhythm of work, sleep, work, sleep, work would do it.  I do feel I would be more productive if I have the opportunity to take a true nap midway through the day. I may have to try that one of these days when I am working virtually.  I often find that when I nap I don’t actually go to sleep - but I do slip into a different mindset when I am taking a nap.
I find I am really struggling at work and I am struggling with getting all the parts of the project I am working on organized.  I feel like I am juggling multiple balls and I can’t get a rhythm established, that every time I just start to find the rhythm, they change it.  They change it by adding new balls or by taking existing balls away, or both. It can be, at times, maddening. I try to pull back, to focus on one thing at a time, but I find that is very difficult when I am trying to move through an environment of constant interruptions. It’s like trying to juggle when someone keeps randomly pushing you in one direction or the other.

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