Working from home on Fridays (NSF-style) has been part of my effort to achieve balance for awhile now. Career-wise it’s working very well. My connection is so seamless my partners at work rarely even know I’m not sitting in my cube and since my agencies are on both coasts while I'm home in the middle, I’m still just a phone call away.
But I’ve noticed over the last few months, that I pop out of bed to pack lunch for Stella, get her off to school and eight action packed hours of back to back conference calls, constant emails, stacks of laundry and making lists of my lists later – I race to Stella’s school arriving frazzled and exhausted. It’s really caused me to wonder - wasn’t this day meant to pull me back to center? To have a day without traffic, without co-worker drop bys, without rushing Stella out the door (and needless to say without the beauty routine.). Instead, I find I’ve turned this opportunity to de-stress into a way to work in extra hours of work catch up and domestic list checking.
Way to go, superstar.
Well, I can’t keep raising the production levels and expect to find any balance, so something has got to give. Earlier today we were pondering over why only our crews of smokers take official breaks and I had a thought – what if I took a lunch break? A REAL lunch break. Not just eating a Lean Cuisine while the crackberry is on mute. An solid hour that’s just for me to spend on anything as long as it has nothing to do with work or home.
And to make this a promise versus an unproductive vent, I am sending it out into the cyber world here and nervously blocking my calendar for a RECURRING appointment at noon on Friday. Okay, really trying not be a pantywaist here but for someone who barely makes time to run to the bathroom this is a big deal. (And a big, honkin' sign of how much this is needed, right?)
Starting this Friday - breathe in, breathe out - Mommy will be Out To Lunch.
