Reflections on my recharge week
Overall, I had a great week off. I slept a lot, did more than I expected to, and learned a good deal about myself and my habits. What is yet to be determined is the actual impact on my potential burnout. As I write this on Sunday afternoon, I feel good and rested. While I would be lying if I said that I was 100% stoked to get back to work, I do feel a bit more motivated and excited to get back to it.
I’m still in a bit of vacation mode so I don’t have a burning desire to put my thoughts in a coherent blog post, so I figured I just write down a few observations and thoughts to memorialize my week.
Overall, this is the most positive I’ve felt in recent memory. Even after a great vacation, I am usually in a sluggish mood the day before going back to work usually due to travel. I need to look into doing a staycation more often. I feel more recharged than I do when I travel by a wide margin.
On sleep - I was in bed nearly every night for over 9 hours. I had no issues sleeping or sleeping in until past 9am. It was a bit of a unique feeling going to bed at home knowing I didn’t have to be up for anything for so many days in a row. It helped my anxiety and sleeping was a lot easier. I need to do a better job turning my brain off from work before sleeping.. it’s clearly the cause of my sleeplessness.
It felt amazing to be able to sleep in as much as I wanted, but I found that it wasn’t much easier getting out of bed. I still woke up a bit sluggish and would need to push myself to get up. I could’ve easily stayed in bed until Noon every day. I wonder if this was just me being lazy or yet another sign of burnout.
My body feels great overall. I didn’t work out once and while I got my steps walking in quite a bit, my body physically feels rested. I need to take more breaks from working out so my body can recover - it’s a net positive overall.
There are so many fun things to do. I wrote a bit about this on Friday, but I quickly rediscovered how much fun I have even if I am by myself. I need to live more and do more fun activities, even if it interrupts my daily routine. Occasional spontaneity is good.
I found it difficult to stay away from work completely. I told myself I would only take one work meeting, but I ended up working perhaps 30-60 minutes at least each day. It wasn’t my plan, but I felt that it was still hard to completely disconnected. The good news was that I didn’t feel stressed by the little work that I did.
On work… I took a week off and everything is fine. My team is amazing and is more than capable of handling everything. My clients understood with some things being a bit delayed. As much as my type A personality has me feeling like I need to get everything done ASAP, I’ve learned that not everything needs to be attacked with the urgency that I have been applying.
The anxiety from constantly checking my phone and ensuring I respond to everything ASAP is one of the worst habits I have. It got to the point where I was checking my email/Slack on my phone even when I was out for 15 minutes to pick-up lunch. It’s not healthy and not productive. I need to live in the present more.