Returning to the World of Nine-to-Five

... or more likely eight-to-six. Does anyone work nine to five any more?

Photo by druisan, made available under a CC BY-NC 2.0 licence.

I'm returning to work tomorrow after almost seven months' leave. It's definitely going to be a shock to the system. My last week has been spent trying to complete a list of unfinished tasks and I am not succeeding.

Why did I take so much leave? To de-stress and determine whether I wanted to continue to work in the Information Technology (IT) industry. I was working long hours on a client site, spending almost two hours a day commuting, and then coming home to complete non-client, administrative work. I was exhausted, on-edge, and unable to think clearly.

De-stressing is hard! It took a three-day silent meditation retreat to actually help me clear my mind. Being on the ashram and minimising the talking was relaxing and re-energising. It reduced external stimuli and allowed me the time and solitude to process my thoughts. Before I attended the retreat, I had well-meaning people saying “you should do this”, “you should do that” and I was starting to feel like I was back at work. The retreat helped me clarify what I wanted and formulate a plan to suit me.

A friend who had resigned from a very stressful job the previous year, said it took her six months to finally relax and feel more energetic. With six months gone and the realisation that my leave was ending, all the old symptoms—shortness of breath, eczema, weight gain, insomnia— recurred. All the negative emotions surrounding my last role are making it so difficult to return.

Looking back, I managed to cram a bit in: trips to Townsville and Cowra; setup of four regular yoga classes; relief teaching at the local community college; brunches, lunches, coffees with family and friends; de-stress a little. High on my to-do list was fixing the flooding problems in our house and I had hoped to have this work started before I returned. *Fingers crossed* we do not have another torrential downpour and drainage problem before we can get some work done.

The seven months also allowed me to really understand myself.

• I might hate schedules but I need a rough schedule to keep myself focused and the ‘pressure’ of deadlines to ensure that I get things done. Without them, I will procrastinate and flitter from amusement to amusement and get nothing done.
• I love teaching yoga.

  It can be disheartening when no one turns up but I love working with themes and developing classes around those themes.

• I enjoy my role as a user experience specialist.

  I was a bit surprised about this. I worked on my teacher's website and found that I was enjoying reviewing the design and structure of her site. Thinking back to the last projects I had worked on, I always led a team of specialists and did limited reviewing or testing. Instead most of my time was spent planning the tasks that needed to be performed, assigning the tasks to team members, and reporting to project managers and the client. I like to do, not manage.

• I neglected my creative side and I miss it.

  I found myself returning to old hobbies: I made some of my Christmas cards this year (albeit because I left it too late to buy cards and couldn't find any that I liked), pulled out my guitar and led my first kirtan, and arranged a song as a piano duet for a friend and her daughter.

  These hobbies used to be outlets for my stress and help me relax. Ironically, it seemed I had become so stressed that I had to relax to get those creative juices flowing again.

So, where to from here? My goal is to continue to build up my yoga business and support this by working 2½-3 days as a user experience specialist.

From a yoga perspective, the new year has started out well. People are thinking about getting healthy and I've attained some new students already. Over the last fortnight I did a letter box drop, placed a couple of online advertisements, and with these measures and people returning from holidays I hope to see numbers increase.

From an IT perspective, I am returning to work four days a week. My role involves working with external clients so the company cannot support a drop in my days so I need to find another role (something less critical to the company's bottom line).

Looks like it's going to be a couple of interesting months!