the work/life balance mystery

I took the weekend off and went to Brighton. The drive down was easy and practically stress free, considering the harrowing congestion of the English motorways. Brighton was light, bright, breezy and from my friend's large and inviting sofa I sat and watched a sea of tiny waves bob about. I didn't take my computer along which was bliss and so didn't look at e-mails or constantly check facebook for most of the weekend. It felt almost normal. Sunday was a heavenly day and I went out in only a fleece enjoying the sunshine, seagulls and blue sky, not the mention the non-academic conversation.

But of course by now work was starting to take up space at the back of my mind. I planned to leave at 3pm in the hope of avoiding the Sunday afternoon traffic and getting home with enough time to put in a few hours of work but, as usually happens, I only drove my little Micra pass the Brighton Pier at 4pm and was punished for this by having to endure a 3 hour drive back to Milton Keynes. I arrived drained, tired and certainly not in the mood to work. But I sat down at my computer and worked my way through corrections, to the case I've been working on, for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. I was slow and disinterested - usually a red light indicator to stop and come back to it later - I obliged.

Of course if I didn't take the weekend off I would have been further along, the corrections would have been done and I would have felt more interested in thinking differently about my writing and adding, changing, amending bits and pieces here and there. These tasks would not have spilt over into the new week that had new tasks and activities already assigned to it. Oh goodness and so it goes. Tuesday and I'm still trying to recover from my relaxing weekend away - said with a very sarcastic tone - it feels like 'the work/life balance' is a thing of mystery to me. I can't seem to grasp it - I know it's good for me and essential to my mental health and finishing this PhD but it's a slippery little bugger and my hands don't seem to have enough grip. Crazy!