Realizing in this cascading crisis of exhaustion and burnout that if I don’t start including at least one planned day of non-work in my schedule each week, I’m going to remain in trouble. It doesn’t help if I get so wound up that a morning going wrong or a day with staggered appointments that I can never really get back to work in between forces me to take the day off academic work in a way I hadn’t budgeted for. I actually have to know it’s coming. Throw all my normal worry-bits into it. Make it sacred me-time, even if that works out to the doctor and holiday decorations and calling my aunt and washing the floors. (At this point, as long as it doesn’t involve parsing or formulating an argument, it’s me-time.)
I do better when I come back to work after these breaks, too. Not just because I’m rested, but because what I’d been juggling has time to kick around in my head unhassled, like not repeatedly clicking a link that’s taking a while to load.
MY BARBARIC MAUP 