06.20.08
Finding the balance
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.
Merriwyn said,
June 20, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Amen to that! Finding the balance is a tricksy business, but it needs to happen or you’ll just get burnt out and angry and stop enjoying your work. I understand this because I am terrible about taking my work home with me (it is a Saturday morning and instead of playing with my baby i’m reading library blogs!) and I have to fight myself periodically and take time out where it is needed. It is largely a matter of trying to make boundaries to stop your work infiltrating the rest of your life, which is much easier said than done, and trying to recognise that using your own time on your ‘real life’ is ok. You don’t have to feel guilty if you use your non-work time (that time they don’t pay you for, remember) on non-work stuff, like your own life.
Dani Vaughn-Tucker said,
June 21, 2008 at 10:16 am
I think finding balance in all things is incredibly important. My husband has a job that is incredibly demanding (he gets phone calls at 2 or 3 in the morning and still leaves the house at 4:45 to be at work by 5:30) and I have to remind him to take breaks too. I’m a librarian who is not on the tenure track (we are considered staff, but that’s a discussion for another time) but I have found that this job absorbs more of my life than I want or am able to dedicate to it. I have four children at home who also need my attention. I got to the point where I have had to say “No, I simply can’t do that” and I refuse to check my work email from home. It doesn’t mean that I am any less dedicated to my profession, it just means that I am equally dedicated to maintaining myself and my homelife. It’s like they always tell new moms, If you don’t take time for yourself, you can’t be a successful mother. We all need “me time.”
J said,
June 21, 2008 at 11:18 am
Well said!
I think that often we worry about seeming less dedicated if we do set boundaries. I’ve had people take the attitude with me that I should be willing to use my personal time for work or professional activities just because I’m salaried. Quite the slippery slope there because once it starts, where does it end.
I think if my job requires me to do certain things to keep my job long-term, then allowances need to be made to allow me to do those things. That’s something that I seem to be fighting for right now. However, I’m often extremely torn wondering if this is an unreasonable demand and I’m just being a squeaky wheel.
Since I live in the town I work in during the week and commute “home” for the weekends, I’m fairly willing to put in more than 40 hours a week. However, I’ve been trying to make my administration understand that if I put in 40-50 hours of work in 4 days time, it would be great if I could have a three-day weekend. I’ve been trying it from the angle that I’m more productive in longer stretches (ie. 10 hour days) and keep the mental health stuff out of it. But the thing is that I also need the time at home with my family to help keep me balanced.
I know that I would likely be happier in my job and my work if it were easier to find this balance..and if the quest to do so were supported. But this is a tough one to work out with administration in many places.
Bobbi Newman said,
June 22, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I think for me it was accepting that I can not keep up on everything if I want to have a balanced life. I’m not going to be the first, second or even 100th person to know about the hottest new thing. Which is part of the reason it’s so important to have a great support network in libraryland. Not only can they sympathize, empathize and encourage by most of them are more than willing to freely share what they know, truly amazing people. Oh and I work in a public library
you’d like librarianship would be less stressful, after all we’re just reading books all day! 
J said,
June 23, 2008 at 9:11 am
I think it can definitely be just as stressful in a public library. Just in different ways. One of the best things that I’ve enjoyed about social networking is that I get to talk to librarian types for all sorts of libraries. Personally some of the best programming ideas I’ve come up with for us have come from the public side.
Plus it’s always good to get different perspectives on stuff.
Kendra said,
June 23, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I think finding a balance is hard and something people should always have in mind. I can understand the pressure to feel like one should be a mover and shaker, but it’s not realistic and just grinds you down. I just had my first long weekend in ages, and it’s definitely made me more enthusiastic about work, as sad as that sounds.
I know a number of academic librarians who opted out of the professional track because they didn’t want to deal with the requirements to attain tenure. It’s sort of silly to treat librarians as faculty because we have different obligations and different levels of pay. Maybe that’s cynical of me.
J said,
June 23, 2008 at 3:51 pm
No Kendra, I don’t think that’s cynical at all. That’s actually a big part of the reason why I don’t think we should ever be tenure track. But I’ll save this for my future post about that.
And I know exactly what you mean about long weekends. This is why I’ve personally decided that I’m going to start making use of my vacation time for long weekends every couple of months. And I determined that when I’m off, I’m really off. No checking email, no bringing work home with me, and doing stuff that is so non-work related I’m not tempted to even think about work.
Part of my problem is that I tend to be “on” 24/7 and I’m working on curbing this tendency in myself. It’s part of the reason why I’m going on a 10-day meditation retreat in a couple of months.
Colleen said,
June 24, 2008 at 8:49 am
I’m so glad to find I’m not the only one thinking this! (I realize I’m commenting late – it’s been a drop-deadline kind of few weeks). I’m always afraid that if I’m not superenthusiastic about spending as much time as humanly possible on work it’ll be reflected that don’t love my work, or want to be an important part of the team. It has gotten to the point that I’ve become jealous of colleagues who claim husbands or children as reasons why they can’t stay late or do certain things…and that’s when I realized that i need to stake out my personal time as well, even if I don’t have quote-unquote “good” reasons like a family I need to get home to. I suppose I could always say I have my sanity to attend to *grin*
I think it’s a really great observation by Bobbi that we may have to accept we’re not going to be on the first-wave. I never was a first-waver, and now that I’m in academia, I feel like it’s expected…but I’m still not. I generally let my network help me find what new tools are most effective and useful instead of trying every single thing myself. I have neither the time nor the inclination to try everything, but I am most thankful to those who do and are willing to share their learning and opinions with me. It does make me glad we’re not in an information-hoarding profession!
What I’ve been dreaming about doing is a few times a year taking a long weekend to a cabin in the woods for a creative writing retreat for myself. I always feel better and more energized after I’ve worked on personal projects, and that energy ends up following me to work and helping me in libraryland. I think I just need to give myself permission to take the time and do it.
I’ve been here nearly a year now at this position, and while my work support network is incredible (I’m lucky – I landed in a great library), my personal support network has been shot to shambles since I moved away from the states I had personal connections in, and I havent made many here. Twitter helps, and IM is always nice to catch folks, but I’m going to need to work on making some “irl” pals soon here in town.
J said,
June 24, 2008 at 11:15 am
You have a good point about the family or kids thing. I think that this happens to a lot of single people or even married people without children. This is one way I’m fortunate in my job, because people are either older without children at home or single.
We do have our sanity to attend to! This is really as good a reason as any to take time away when you need it and can do it. I really do feel better after I’ve had a long weekend even if all I’ve done is sleep late and watch movies. We all need that down time.