I’ve gone to my second Family Caregivers Support group meeting. It is not downtime so much as catharsis time. It’s helpful to me because I feel less isolated and I learn more about family caregiving as an unsung and unpaid vocation. Did you – or anyone here – know that November was National Family Caregiver Month? But I am also learning to ask for and accept help. I have arranged for my brother to come over for a couple hours on Monday morning (he puts his NLS books for the blind audio-file on speaker and they “read” funny books together) and those two hours are going to by my down time. Time that I go out for a coffee and do some reading, or researching, or sketching, or writing – without worrying about my mother, without worrying about interruptions. I am so very excited!
As for sleep… Sadly, I’m one of those people who needs a minimum of nine hours to function optimally. It will be a long time coming, but I am working harder at relaxing my mind to go to sleep earlier, after I get my mom to bed.
🙂

I’ve been thinking about this and I guess the best thing to do is to give myself permission to enjoy my work. I should accept that just because my work is so enjoyable to me doesn’t mean I can’t both reward myself by working and accept my work as my endeavor at making a livelihood.
Just because most people don’t feel this way about their work and society seems to expect that work be something we suffer through doesn’t mean I can’t break that mold for me.
Ok, I have it intellectually. Let’s see if I can’t assimilate it emotionally. 🙂
Patricia

Thanks Alyson, yes I already do break down the jobs into bite-sized pieces(maybe not small enough or maybe too small?) and I still feel so overwhelmed when I see all those bites because I still am envisioning the whole thing all at one all at the same time esp in the business side of the art. Those bites add up to a lot of bites so then the list of bites is so long that I get overwhelmed even more.
Also I do a planning time weekly(learned this artwise from you years ago when I was in your first on-line time management class). May be it is that I have not focused enough on planning in the business part of it as well as I could, that is why I need to reread your book and your Blast offs! lessons.
It may be also I am missing what would be a good form of transitioning for me from art to business and everything else . These transitions that others are sharing are really good things that I can learn from. Again Alyson thank you for responding so encouragingly to my comment. I love how you get straight to the point.

No, not really. I usually want to see the photographs I’ve taken out in the field on the computer straight away (I use digital). So the transition is quite easy in that sense.
I usually like to edit the photos and then work on some other aspect of the business. I purposely try to forget what the photos look like exactly, then I look at them again and reevaluate the photos.

Kevin: Driving is another good transition! As much as I’m grateful for not having a commute, I sometimes miss driving each day and listening to the radio or a teleseminar on the iPod. Although, my last job was a less-than-5-minute drive through a neighborhood. Not much listening going on during that short time.

Victoria: I think it’s okay to have work/personal life bleed together. Chris Guillebeau talks about this. If you love what you do, it’s impossible to separate life and art.

Patricia: I’m so glad you have that group.
I think of downtime as time just for you: what you need to be whole and to rejuvenate. Did the meeting do that for you?
I get enough sleep. I cannot function without it. On the rare occasion that I get less than 7 hours sleep, I feel it. I know what my body needs and that I do better work when I sleep 8 hours (at least!).

Will: That’s a huge issue. Having a separate space can help make the transition easier.
When I started my business, I sold or gave away a ton of stuff from my 3-room house. I lived in a 2-room apartment and decided to give my office it’s own room. The bedroom, dining room, living room and kitchen–as they were–were all in a single tiny room. It was great! I had an office and felt official.