Stamina

I've been having pretty consistent problems with willpower. I'll wake up in the morning determined to make sure that the day is productive, and I start out on the right foot. Meditation, medication, clothes, rabbit, email, then work. Things go well right up until 2 PM, and that's when my resolve starts to flag. Things start to slip a little, I start looking for distractions, mindless activities to indulge in. If there are more things that require my immediate attention, it takes a lot more out of me, and it takes longer and longer for me to 'recharge' up to the point where I can do anything. By the end of work, I'm fried. The prospect of leaping right into a personal project or cleaning up the burrow just makes me shrug my shoulders. The idea of being somewhat conservative for dinner instead of gorging myself on every snack I can find feels like more work than I can handle.

I don't want to complain about my job, because I actually like what I do. But it's draining. I think I've mentioned this before, but just in case you're coming in for the first time -- I'm the support administrator for a company that sells a fairly complex suite of products. When cases come in through email and by phone, I intercept it and make sure we have enough information to act on it. I help determine the appropriate priority, make sure that a customer's issue statement is clear, remind customers (and coworkers) about proper processes and why they're there, when appropriate. Most days it feels like air traffic control -- at any given moment, I have to deal with any number of new cases, questions about existing ones, various projects that I'm dealing with, etc. etc. The project work is especially important to me, because it's interesting work that I find challenging. But it's basically my job to be interrupted, so I don't get a good chunk of time to work on that.

A lot of the time it feels like I'm talking a customer off a ledge, telling them why their issue isn't as important as they think it is. Or I'm doing battle with a coworker, telling them why this process is actually a pretty big deal and outlining the consequences if it isn't followed. Most of the time it simply makes our job more difficult; the coworker doesn't see TOO much of the blowback. Getting someone to care about something that doesn't personally affect them (especially when they have so much on their plate already) is a tough sell. But I need to make it.

I think that's the most draining thing about my job, actually; it's a low-level debate about what's important and what's not. A lot. I wish I were more gregarious and persuasive, and I'm working on that sort of thing, but I'm really not. I love talking about things that are exciting to me, but it's way draining trying to explain it to someone who doesn't immediately get it. At the same time, I'm a writer-wannabe. It's part of my deal, framing ideas and concepts in a way that people connect to. The part of my job that's the most draining is actually the part that helps me with my writing, so there's that.

But still, at the end of the day I feel really tired for just about anything. But all of my free time happens in the evening! So there's my dilemma. I can actually feel my willpower running out, where it's going to be an uphill climb just to do things that should be easy. I try to make allowances for this, of course -- I know myself well enough that those moments when I feel like I can take on the world won't last, and I'll have to struggle. And I'm torn about what to do with those times. Do I ease back a bit to give myself time for my willpower to come back? Or do I try to push through anyway, to write when I don't feel like doing anything? Something has to give; my schedule pretty much demands me to be productive in the evenings if at all.

So that's what's on my mind today. :)