Working Out Work Anxiety

Well, Friday was good too. No need to go into detail now, but I seem to be doing ok so far with my return. Not to be pessimistic, but I need to be prepared that my first FULL week back will bring greater challenges. Better to be prepared for something and not have it come than be surprised.

Every weekend during the work year I deal with work anxiety over the weekend. Usually I try to keep Saturday nights work-free, but then Sunday morning I tend to wake up worrying, and worry all day until I finally have time to get my stuff done.

I'm trying a different strategy this week. I did a little bit of work tonight, just enough to help me see exactly what must be done tomorrow. Hopefully then I can just DO it rather than think about it too much. The challenge of course is that I have to do this according to ND's not-quite-predictable schedule. The advantage is that I no longer assume I should have time to do much else.



I finished reading Nursing Mother, Working Mother which discusses just that in one of the final chapters. Pryor notes that it's nice to get work done in large chunks, but that moms often need to do it according to the ebb and flow of the baby, but that does not mean any less gets accomplisehd. She suggests ceasing to create "to do" lists and instead creating "accomplished" lists. I think it's a good idea.

With Purim taking up all of next weekend, followed by a visit from my parents (which I'm looking forward to but during which I will want to spend less time working), and then parent-teacher conferences on the 18th (I need to catch up on the kids' work of the past 3 months to prepare for this!!!) followed by Pesach, I definitely have to keep all this in mind.

One final thought about the book and my experience. I've gotten so used to hearing parents talk about how they can't get work done with their kids around, or that they have to decide between the two sometimes. It seems unfortunate. I think I want to make my goal to see how much I can involve her in everything I do from sitting with me at the computer (at this age) to asking for her help with chores when she's older. All of this is life and we're living it together.