One of things that can often happen when you are tenure-track is that work starts to take over your life. In the need to present, serve on committees, write, and whatever else as you strive to meet the requirements, a balance between work/career and a personal life can become very skewed…in the wrong direction, in my humble opinion.

There are plenty of people out there who scoff at librarianship being a career. Well, scoff away, but I’m making it a career choice. For me, it is more than just a job that I go to every day where I’m really just marking time until I figure out something better or until I can retire. I get deep satisfaction from much of what I do. Sure, I can do without the bureaucracy and politics, but the main stuff that I do is great.

However, lately I’ve been noticing how stressed-out and depressed I’ve been feeling. And after only a short amount of self-reflection, I’ve discovered it’s because things have gotten rather unbalanced. Work has really taken over my life to the point that I even dream about it. (I promise this isn’t going to turn into true confessions so stick with me.)

I could get into the various reasons why I feel that tenure-track is not the right place for librarians in academia, but that’s a post for another day.

One thing that I know is extremely helpful is a support network. The people that I see on a daily basis are actually not the best people for my support network. Sometimes you’ll be in a place where things like that just click. When it doesn’t it’s not a personal reflection or a negative. Things might be different for someone else. But I’ve had to go outside my workplace to get support from other librarians and library staff. Twitter is one of those great places where I’ve found helpful people with kind words and good suggestions. No matter where you find, definitely find that for yourself. And the other benefit is that it’s not all shop talk all the time either.

The thing I’m working on now is figuring out how to make time to do things that are completely non-work related or library related fun things. I’ve always had a great time surfing the web and playing on the computer. But for me, it’s too much like being at work and I’m too tempted to check email at home when I’m anywhere near my computer. So, I’m figuring out things that can’t be associated with work that will allow me time to unwind and explore other aspects of my life. Plus, when things are stressful or I’m having a particularly busy week, having something to look forward to can actually be a great thing.

I’ve also been trying to figure out a way to get more breaks. I remember reading something several years ago that it’s good to take a week off about every three months. Often, that’s not entirely practical. But a long weekend can be very refreshing. And conference travel does not equal a vacation, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. I don’t know of too many people who don’t return from conferences exhausted, even if it was a great, fabulous, exciting conference. Why do we always feel so obligated to get back to work right away? The thing is that we should actually feel free to take a vacation day to rest, do laundry, and whatever else in our outside life had to be put on hold during the pre-conference and conference time. Maybe it’s a cultural attitude that needs to be changed, but I’m going to try not being guilty if I decide a vacation day after 3-5 days of travel is a good thing for my mental health.

I’d love to hear how people maintain balance in their lives. Maybe this means I’ll never be a mover and a shaker, but I’d rather be sane and happy. And for me, this means finding that middle ground.