I almost never remember my dreams, but I had one last night that came back to be this afternoon. In the dream, I had a new born baby. I nursed it, laid it down to sleep, and then forgot about it for many hours. When I remembered it, I fed it again, then put it down and forgot about it again. This kept happening, once overnight; I woke up after sleeping for 10 hours and realized I had never woken up to feed the baby during the night. Each time, to my relief the baby was fine but I felt terrible for forgetting it.
I feel this has something to do with my guilt over not working during the snow day yesterday. Something about ignoring my research and worrying it will die. Or something.
It just nags at me. I had a really productive day today, which you would think would make up for yesterday. My goal is to feel like if I work hard during "work time", i.e. 40 hours or so each week, then I can forget about work during "play time." This is fine, but if I slip up at all, like yesterday, it all falls apart. Plus, it doesn't work in reverse -- I don't get give myself much extra credit for working on a Saturday. And, I feel bad that I'm not passionate enough about my research that I want to work on it more (like Ecogeoman and many friends seem to do).
If I'm going to continue in science, I need to get this guilt thing sorted out. There's no way I'm going to live the rest of my life this way.
10 comments:
Maybe realising how unreasonable the guilt is can be considered the first step. One of my pet peeves about academia is the hype about working hours. Maybe ecogeoman and others who works many many hours a week don't work as efficiently as you seem to do. As I have talked about on my own blog I loathe being forced into the 40 hour work schedule and would prefer to spread the eight hours of daily work over the whole day and evening for that matter. It is not that I think I could do more, but that I'd rather have some breaks and chunks of time to run errands or just chat with people during the day.
I also think it depends on what kind of work you're doing. Clearly some executive who has meetings for most of the day including taking clients out for lunch and dinner might work 80 hours per week or more, but it's not the same as being on the bench or writing papers for 80 hours a week.
Hope you are able to let go of some of the guilt. From what you write here it sounds like you're doing great work and are very productive during your work days.
I agree with saxifraga - I too hate how academia basically sets you up for a neverending cycle of guilt. Everyone expects to get more done than humanly possible, sets unreasonable goals, doesn't meet them (because they're unreasonable), then feels guilty and horrible and can't even enjoy any play time. I've been trying to work on my own guilt issues about this for years. Some of the things I'm finding is that I feel less guilty when I work for less time, but more productively. So, for example, when I'm in my office I don't do anything personal on the computer (blog, email friends, surf) unless its lunch time. It keeps me working more efficiently. And I'm also learning that sometimes play time just happens off schedule and you need to go with it - I'm starting to wonder if its just my mind telling me I need a break? I wish I could say I had this figured out and I could help you! I think its part of the environment we work in. One other thing I notice is that I rarely give myself credit for how much "mind work" is tiring- it can seem like "Oh, all I did today was sit at the computer and write, so I should have more energy" but that's work too.
I struggle with this too. Quite a bit actually. When I feel like I haven't gotten enough done, Hubby makes me reevaluate, and admit that I am not giving myself enough credit.
Then there is the whole creativity thing. If stretched to my limits, I have no ideas. Period. I need the play time so my brain can rest and come back more creative!
Recognizing the problem is the first step, but I am afraid I have a long ways to go. I am hopeful for improvement though, and I hope so are you.
I know the work hard/play hard separation of church/state model sounds like it makes the most sense, but actually I've found I tend to cope best when I let things flow more freely. It is okay to mix. In some ways it's even better, especially if you want science to really be part of your life.
Do you do science? Or are you a Scientist?
For me, that means a couple hours of work on the weekend are ok, and yes it's ok to read blogs/news during lunch on 'workdays'.
And no apologies about it.
Precisely because of things like snow days. Having a strict schedule just does not work in my field. And I'm always afraid I'll get hit by a bus and die miserable from having deprived myself in some effort to keep up appearances about work!
For me it's not guilt about 'getting work done' - I get more than enough done, I have to force myself to stop to avoid burnout - so much as the guilt about constantly struggling to meet some arbitrary definition of 'balance.'
Our culture seems obsessed lately with prescriptions for success & happiness, but I'm not convinced it's so clear cut as '40 hrs per week, the end'.
I too have a really hard time letting work go. I have wasted weekends because I felt vaguely guilty about what I was *not* getting done, instead of realizing that sometimes you just need to relax and have a snow day. And work dreams where you have nightmares about having forgot to do something important? Are THE WORST. I have those a lot.
Anyway, I wish I had some advice for you but it sounds like you're doing a great job with your project efficiency. Keep it up and maybe you will get into a more mentally relaxed state.
Arduous, it sucks that you have the same problem, but it's nice to know it's not just a science thing (not that I really thought it was).
MsPhd, I think I am somewhere between someone who does science and is a scientist. I want other things to be important too.
I just want to do my work and feel good about it. And feel good about the rest of my life too.
Anyway, all of your comments are really comforting. Thanks.
Ugh. I think I went through all of graduate school feeling guilty.
Things changed a bit during my postdoc when I had a family. I was NOT going to feel guilty about not being in the lab on a weekend when I had family responsibilites, and, soon enough, a baby that needed me! Of course, that was just trading in one set of guilt issues for another...
Anyway, good luck with it. It's hard, I know.
arrgh! the guilt, the guilt, I try to live in denial; that I don't have any
No help from here, I'm afraid -- sometimes I run into a spiral of feeling guilty for not getting anything done, being desperate and thus even less productive. Solved with the beginning of a new day, usually, but... that's not good either. And I'll still be unhappy about all that wasted time.
let me know if you figure it out! that's the thing i stuggle with the most too. (Sorry, I'm behind on reading, hence the late comments - see, more guilt :) .)
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