189/365 Timeout

It would be an understatement to say my job is full on and stressful....most days the stress levels seem to be those of an A&E department, yet no one has yet died of not having enough IT Research to my knowledge :) It's one of those jobs where the number of things that "absolutely have to be done NOW!!" far far exceeds the amount of hours in the day to do them. In fact they conducted a time and motion study of my group this time last year and worked out that on average we all work about another 2-3 hours a day than we are paid to.Despite my best intentions to do what I can and not worry about the rest, I find myself over and over again falling into the trap of logging on at 6am, working through lunch, and continuing when I get home. Then an evening or a weekend is spent sleeping and trying to recover from it, but the thinking and analysing never stops even then. The "net net" of this (as they say!) is that after 8 - 12 weeks of this I am literally crawling on hands and knees towards a holiday, and then often find my body just "gives up" and I get a migraine or tonsillitis etc etc. SO having conducted a "mid year review" (more to follow) of what's important to me and what I would still like to work on before the end of 2011, I have decided to stop the 6am working, and get OUT of the office for my lunch break everyday. I am lucky to be situated right next to about 3 beautiful riverside / park locations 5 min drive from the office. So yesterday I drove to one, taking a book, had a little lunch, a read, called me mum and chatted and generally allowed myself to breathe in and out calmly, and felt SO much better for it. I am always talking to my clients about the pressure we all face now to work 24/7, and it seems to be the same in most corporate environments. I guess its partly economically motivated, everyone wants to work hard, get bonuses, keep their job. Every company has reduced headcount, and increased individuals workload - mine has tripled since when I started 7 years ago. Also there is now a blurred line between what is "home life" and what is "work life". Employers are I think now more flexible about working from home if you need to, of taking time out in the day to go to the doctors etc. On the flip side, there is a subtle expectation that really you should always be contactable. ALWAYS. At weekends, evenings, on holiday, at Christmas etc. It can't really be good for people mentally and emotionally, let alone for the company motivation and productivity wise in the long run. So maybe I will start a one woman campaign, I always fancied myself as a Wolfie style character (Citizen Smith - does anyone remember that?) *wink*