I’m lucky that I’ve worked for the same place for a very long time, and therefore have accumulated a lot of vacation. Because EVERYTHING was cancelled this year, I had a bunch of time off I had to burn up because it couldn’t be rolled over. I had a lot of 3 or 4 day weeks starting in October. So it’s been a huge change to suddenly switch back to working five days in a row.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is how brain-tired I get. I think I’m more prone to brain fatigue, given the stroke I had several years ago. But it’s really noticeable when I have just two days for downtime, and then I have to crank-up and work in high performance mode for five days straight.
The interesting thing I’ve noticed over the years is that I can work a long day and be OK — like a 10 or 12 hour day. But once I hit about 45 hard hours total of work on consecutive days, my brain wants to turn off.
It even impacts my creative pursuits. I don’t want to scrapbook, or do anything that takes brain power. I just want to sleep, and even that doesn’t come easy. No rest for the weary, in my case.
It’s no surprise then that the last week has been less than productive on the creative front. It look me 15 minutes last night, working on a digital layout, to remember how to do something that is nearly automatic for me. And, true to form, instead of stopping, I just kept trying to make it work until it did. And I paid the price with a migraine.
I’m much better this morning, but I can feel my work to-do list creeping up on me, even though I have a three day weekend ahead. It was so much easier to turn off the work part of my brain during the holiday season than it is right now. It’s probably because of the distraction and demands of the holidays. I need to find that switch for the other 10 months of the year.