Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Work/Life


This Week's Question: How do you balance work and life?



What's this?! I'm resurrecting my dear beloved mini advice column finally after soooo many weeks of quiet. Better late than never I suppose. Here we go...

I would say for the most part this isn't a problem, as I have no life... haha. Just kidding! But I must say that my personal schedule is rather free and my working schedule is actually rather easy (at the moment, knock on wood.) Right as I finish one or two projects I magically get another organically rather than getting a million projects at the same time, and then none for weeks. Must just be lucky I guess. I am also lucky in that my technique and my illustrations are rather simple and quick to finish. They don't require days and days of work, maybe just a few hours to complete from start to finish.

This apartment hunt would be a great example of how life is interfering with my work. (I had promised to keep the apartment chat to a minium but I'm totally breaking that promise now.) It used to be that blogging, reading blogs or Pinterest would somewhat interfere with me getting as much work done in a day than I'd like to, but now we've been spending hours on realtor sites searching for the perfect apartment, going to showings, chatting with realtors, and then all of the obsessing over these 'perfect' apartments and dreaming about how we'll decorate etc. It's just so distracting! Don't worry, I haven't neglected my important commissioned projects of course, I just haven't spent time creating new work or brought any of my dreamed up textile designs to life. So when I could be promoting my business I'm pretty much just lolligagging. I know I know, it's just for awhile, but maybe next month it will be something else. Imagine how distracted I'll be when we actually have to move. It takes hours and days to pack up one apartment and move into another. Not to mention all the time it takes to buy new furniture, build it, and put everything in it's new right place.

My work schedule is also of course effected by Johan's work schedule. It's much easier to pay attention to work when I'm home alone, when Johan is at school or at work. When Johan is free, I usually want to be free too. I can thank my flexible job, that allows me to do so. If I work little one day, I can compensate by being really focused the next day, or by getting up early or working late. Sometimes I just have bad days where no matter what I do, I can't concentrate on working. I'll try to do something else, gather inspiration etc and give my mind some rest.

I don't really let my life be taken over by my work and my work taken over by my life. They are actually kind of one in the same. I'm neither obsessed with working or not working. I think I've found a nice balance. (Sometimes I of course wish I was a little more a of workaholic, but I'm thinking that would get old fast. What do you say boyfriend?)

How do you separate work and life?




5 comments:

J {*sparklingly} said...

If it matters, I'm placing my vote for *more* apartment hunt posts! :)

I'm fascinated by the whole thing (even if I didn't have a particularly personal interest in how it works in Stockholm), I just find the whole process in general interesting. I read once that moving is one of the top most stressful experiences for people to go through——would love to know how you're managing it! :)


PS. Glad Fettisdag!

Unknown said...

Thank goodness I'm a very chill person, so I don't really get stressed, and it's not like we're being kicked out tomorrow, so we still have time.

We've got our eyes on one apartment now. It's smaller, but in a nice area, and in the style that we like. We wouldn't have to really change a thing. Even talked our way into getting a private showing before everyone else. But what we can't figure out is how to get it to be ours without losing to someone else. That would be so lame. So we are trying to bid and buy it before anyone else has the chance to see it. Still waiting to hear what the seller thinks of our bid. (The waiting part is the worst.)

If we don't get it, I'll be pretty bummed for a minute or two, and then just have to move on. About 10 new apartments are listed every day.

J {*sparklingly} said...

Oh, wow, that's amazing you were able to get a preview before the listing went public. Crossing my fingers for y'all that your bid is accepted and you don't have to wait too long!

[ I am...well, the opposite of a chill person, so I'm already stressing about figuring out my housing situation someday ;) ]

Unknown said...

Update! Our early bid wasn't accepted so now we have to bid the regular way, fighting with other people. Blah.

But we're also going to see a few other interesting apartments this weekend. Might find something perfect then!

J {*sparklingly} said...

Oh, what a pain!

But, at least there's still a chance you can get it bidding the regular way and that it hasn't already been snapped up by someone else...and here's to seeing some pretty new places this weekend just in case! Good luck, y'all!

J.