Undivided

Sometime around mid-January, I realized that my life life was becoming entirely too wrapped up in my business life, which is to say that not a day passed in which I didn't do something work-related, whether meeting with clients or dealing with admin stuff or writing or any of the dozens of other things I need to do to keep things chugging. Of my own volition, I long ago gave up on having an actual weekend (of the Saturday-Sunday variety), but I always figured I'd make up for it by having some time off at some point in the week.

Not so thus far in 2007. So I set a goal of one work-free day per week--and almost as soon as that goal came into being, it was utterly obliterated. Not since Christmas vacation have I had an utterly work-free day.

Mind, the fact that business is booming is a delightful thing, and (listen up, universe) I'm in no way complaining about the work that has (and, I hope, will continue to) come my way. What's starting to wear, though, is the sense that the rest of my life has to be crammed in to the little spaces between my work life. Yes, owning a business means there's not really a strict division between me and the company, but more and more, there's almost no division at all. And even thinking about that tires me.

A quick check of my calendar reveals that my next meeting-less day is March 1, more than a week and a half hence. In the meantime, my To Do list continues to grow at a pace that makes me want to hire my own assistant. (That's an entirely reasonable idea, but of course Find and Hire Assistant would be their own To Do list entries.) It sets my head spinning, and makes me want to take to bed (which just reminds me that the one task I really wanted to do this weekend--buy a new mattress--remains sadly undone).

I've written before about practicing what I preach, and though I might be good at that in some realms, when it comes to work/life balance, clearly I'm doing a horrific job. Would that it were easier and less overwhelming to change that.