Tag Archives: busy

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Off the Clock

So today I’m giving myself a day off at home. This almost never happens. And at 2:29pm on this, my Friday of rest and relaxation, I’m starting to see why it doesn’t.

I’m that girl you went to school with who refused to be separated from her agenda book, and as an adult I cling to it even more obsessively. It tells me where I need to be when, what needs to get done at what time, helps me prioritize and helps me plan ahead to my  next trip or vacation.

After realizing that my workaholic ways were at risk of stressing out myself and the people around me, I started to make a few changes. I don’t beat up on myself when I need more sleep than my alarm clock  thinks I do. Catchup sessions with friends are given the same priority as business appointments. I insist that my dad and I have one movie date every month. And, this month, I decided I needed a whole day to just chill.

Originally the do-nothing date was Tuesday August 20th. Other than a family dinner, that day stayed blank in my dayplanner for awhile, until I forgot about my decision and booked two business meetings plus a bunch of errands and some time to prep for an audition on Wednesday (which I’d found out about on Tuesday afternoon).

So I tried again: Friday, August 23rd would be a me day. I would jog, read, wish two people a happy birthday, and just hang out, whether alone or with other people, at home or somewhere else.

Except, now that I knew I had a day off coming up, other things kept popping up like dandelions in a perfect green lawn. A meeting from Thursday required some follow-up the day after. A call to a hairstylist yesterday resulted in having to try him yet again today. Ditto with an attempt to confirm a tomorrow-afternoon meeting, an invitation to an acquaintance I saw yesterday for an event on Monday, a letter I haven’t finished writing yet, a bunch of music I need to learn by tomorrow, finalizing plans for tomorrow evening, emailing some people, and emailing some other people back. I also need to get on doing the dishes. Oh, and tonight I’m going to a club for one of the aforementioned birthday people. Then I realized, hey, it’s a been a full week since the last thing went live on my blog! I can’t neglect you guys like that.

So instead of a lazy wake-up-whenever-and-maybe-get-a-mani-pedi kind of day, my Fun Friday actually looks much the same as every other day this week:

This week in the life of Chattrisse

This week in the life of Chattrisse

And while one or two of the things I want to do today can probably be shuffled to this weekend or next week, I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed at giving myself time off.

What can I say, I’m good at doing stuff! For the week that I blogged about as being one of the best weeks ever because so many amazing things happened, my agenda looked like this:

Busy does not always mean productive, but this week I was ultra-productive and loving every hectic minute of it

Busy does not always mean productive, but here I was ultra-productive and loving every hectic minute of it

And the only time it’s ever been basically empty is when I take my yearly trip to Haiti. Mind you, I’m there working, but the work is different and I unplug from phones and internet while I’m in Ayiti.

Breathing room.

Breathing room.

I think this is pretty strong evidence that for me to take a vacation I need to remove myself from my home. Or from the GTA, even. I spent some time at my grandmother’s house recently and started my first day there by sleeping for eleven amazing hours. Since Grandma lives in London (Ontario), there were fewer opportunities for me to be a workaholic even with my laptop on.

So I guess all that remains to be seen is when and where my next actual vacation will be.

That, and how quickly I can get these dishes done.