The 7 day work week
A number of friends asked me if I had written a “Goals for 2011″ blog post the same way I did for 2010 with my “in 2010 I want to focus on my personal growth” manifesto. You could say that my 2011 manifesto is “to take care of myself before I take care of others“. Differently from how I felt about my 2010 major goal, in 2011 I am not 100% sure of the actual pathway. Particularly as I start 2011 helping organize a charitable event (you’ll hear more at the beginning of the coming week). And I still work the 7 day work week.
Those of you who have read Tim Ferriss’ book “the 4 hour work week” may find some resonance with both our titles (full disclosure, I have NEVER read anything of Tim Ferriss, other than a ONE-time glimpse at his Twitter feed). But the truth is, the reason why I thought of the fact that I continue to have a 7 day work week is that, much as I have begun to say NO to a lot of things and try to cut down on commitments, I still work 7 days a week.
I thought of staying at my office late last night (I did end up leaving after 8pm) so I could finish all the work I had pending and my body just couldn’t take it. I had to go home and eat dinner and go to bed. And despite the fact that people seem to continue to think that blogging is an activity that does not take time, maintaining this blog DOES take a lot of time, and should be considered work.
Liaising with PR folks, theatre producers, restaurant managers and other people who approach me to blog about them DOES take time (I wrote a lengthy post on the value of time a while ago that I need to polish and publish). Running contests, contacting winners, mailing prizes DOES take time. So, while I still blog for myself and I love it, it’s still work. I still have to think about an editorial calendar (thanks to my friend Kate Trgovac for the idea). I still have to write blog posts, find photos to go with my posts (or upload my own). All these activities take time!
So I end up working 7 days a week. My goal for 2011 is to go down from working 7 days a week to a maximum of 6 and hopefully to a maybe longer work week (I work easily 9-14 hour days sometimes) but hopefully, full weekends and more holidays this year. That’s one of my goals in 2011 – to move slowly away from the 7 day work week.
Related posts:
Ugh. I so hear this. I am now on the 7 day work week, with 2 jobs, several volunteer things, a job, a social life (or whatever last vestige of this), friends, and various other things.
And blogging is a full-time job; more so for you because you are so regular. I commit to one good post a week, and that’s about all I can do without fainting.
I had my old lady moment this week – was in bed by 10 because my body was just exhausted.