a day of rest

During my PhD I had this unspoken rule that for at least one day in the week I would not work on my thesis. It was a rule I introduced to give myself the illusion of a breathing space, that would allow me to step away from the thesis that consumed my head, my being. I always imagined that I would never again be in a position where work would take over my life in this way. Now that I'm teaching again and trying to carve out a space to do writing work as well, I've quickly found myself in this position where the rules I applied to my PhD, especially about working on weekend, have been completely discarded. I'm working everyday of the week often until 10 pm at night and still not getting everything I need to do done. I keep thinking, as I did during my PhD, that I'm simply not using my time effectively. That I'm just inefficient. Unfortunately my default is always to blame myself, although I know a lot of the tensions I'm experiencing at the moment are reflected more deeply in how academic work is conceptualised in the vocational higher education sector in South Africa and the particular constraints I'm facing in my department. But on the face of things, I just cannot find more hours in the day to stay on top of all the tasks I need to do. And I'm becoming deeply resentful of how much of my supposedly free time I need give up to get my basic work-relate tasks done.I'd always imagined that working like this was reserved for my PhD and not my full-time job! At the moment I've basically abandoned any aspirations for writing this term and I'm deeply pissed off about it. I love being in the classroom again, I just wish there was a way that my teaching did not become the obstacle to my writing.