I am a bit lost for thoughts these days as you can no doubt tell. Or maybe it’s just the worry and stress of getting things moving from my plate… I feel like I don’t have time to sit back, relax, enjoy stuff for the sake of it. I was thinking to myself just the other day that until a year ago I always made it a point to not do any work on weekends, then I gradually started slipping in work on a Saturday, and now I seem to be working the entire weekend. This is not to say that I don’t take any break, of course I do… I do it after I am done with a deadline which is a good chunk of a month or more when I go slightly easy on myself for at least a week. The problem as I see it is that I enjoy a lot of aspects of my work say for instance the reading and because I enjoy it I very often feel like I didn’t actually do any work or that I did something ‘easy’ but the truth is that it’s something that absorbs the mind fully and is not really the same as taking a proper break or going easy.

I want to get back to my earlier schedule of not doing any work on weekends. It would be a bit harder these days to follow this because I can’t enjoy activities like pottering about the city or browsing in the shops the way I used in pre-COVID times… if I am at home then I feel that I might as well start reading something. But I think it’s worth forcing myself to think of something entirely different from anything to do with my work or research. Maybe cook something more elaborate or organise shelves or go for a longish walk or something of the kind. I feel that ultimately this will also benefit my work… I have always observed that when you come back from breaks you come with a fresh mind or see things with new eyes… I feel like I need more of that fresh perspective or fresh mind now. In a way by not taking proper breaks I have only been giving it less rather than more. I am hoping to correct this…not just from a work perspective but also as part of self-care. Let’s see how it goes :)