I’ve had a couple of long hard weeks at the day job. Let me be clear, I attend meetings, draw on whiteboards, tell people my ideas, read documents and occasionally write stuff, so when I say “hard”, we shouldn’t think I was out on a chain gang breaking rocks or anything – I have pretty soft and supple computer nerd hands.
But the days were long and pretty intense. By Friday when we submitted the client proposal we’d been working on for about four weeks, I was pretty much wrecked mentally.
So, like any sensible person, that evening I came home and decided, “Right, this weekend I’m going to focus on getting my book finished and ready to be published.”
That’s what normal people do, isn’t it?
I put in about 12 hours of editing work on the audio version of the book and spent another few hours mucking around with settings and everything else. I now realize why when I finished recording those chapters last year that I took a break – oi vey, that process is tedious.
Funny story…
As I was listening to the audio files of the book I recorded last year, I really had almost no memory of actually doing that. I vaguely recall doing some chapters, but I had no idea I’d actually done them all.
While editing them, I would find these “outtake” sections. There was a lot of burping and coughing – when you record audio like that, your breathing is kind of funny and your throat gets scratchy so that kind of make sense.
What I wasn’t necessarily prepared for were the strings of expletives that I was uttering into the mic at times.
As I was listening back, I remember it really well now. The house behind us was being renovated and there was one guy on the roof periodically over the two days I did the recording who would just start hammering. You could vaguely hear it in the background, but obviously, it had become quite annoying to me because I called that gentleman some very unkind things and wished some serious harm on him. LOL.
I listened to one string of curse words I let out and it was so funny that I made my wife listen back to it.
She was embarrassed for me.
Anyway, back to our story…
After the last few weeks, I had decided to take today off, have an easy day, go get a haircut and relax.
Yeah, four more hours of audio editing.
I did manage to get breakfast and have a haircut though, so at least I did some “relaxing” on my day off.
I make light of it, but in retrospect, it was kind of stupid.
You need to be kind to yourself sometimes. Looking back on today, I should have spent the day listening to books, watching Jessica Jones (season 2 came last week, I love that show!) and just taking it easy.
We need to recharge our batteries, especially if we’re working full-time jobs, doing family stuff and running our online businesses and freelance stuff on the side.
Nobody is going to take care of you besides you. We’re adults and we need to remember that sometimes we should behave accordingly.
There are a time and place for hard work, but while I make light of my efforts, in truth, I’m pretty annoyed with myself. I have now set myself up for another long week instead of taking care of myself.
Just in case nobody else will say it to you, I will… Be kind to yourself.
There are no medals or prizes for working the hardest and putting in the most hours, those are just in your head.