Too Much of a Good Thing

Is there ever too much of a good thing? Yes. I have reached my point of saturation when it comes to my job. I have been working too many hours and not getting enough done. I just came from my boss’s office where I asked him to pick up a couple of my task for me. He had previously told me to let him know when it was too much and I did that.

This was not an easy task for me and I honestly thought I was over trying to do everything, but apparently not. I can remember back in the mid-80s I worked myself to the point of exhaustion where I was unable to work more than a few hours a day for a few weeks until I could recover from ‘burning the candle at both ends”. At that time I was working full time and basically doing full time ministry full time every evening. I had run at that pace for a couple of years and finally my body said enough.

Until I started this job in January I had a personal rule to not work at home at night. If I needed to work extra I would stay at the office late or go into the office on the weekends. This job being something that not only excites me and brings fulfillment has also given me an excuse to break my own rule. I could use the fact that I need to work with our development team in Russia and that happens after 8pm at night usually but that doesn’t explain why I am on the computer working at 6pm and then most nights not shutting it off until 11pm or later. I figure that I have not had a true day off in almost two months. A day where I did not look at email, answer a phone or work on a project.

So now what? All that I can say is that I made the first step this afternoon in correcting the situation by asking for help. I have a deadline that I need to finish up tonight and then it will be time to turn the computer off. Maybe I need to just start leaving the laptop at work, now that is a thought.