lent day 6: office versus home
My life changed pretty drastically when i took over as Assistant Director here at Tulane in terms of workload.
Year one (2014-15) was a push up in responsibility, but it was also eased by the fact that there was a transition period when Mark left, meaning that he was the one that was still responsible for arranging the music and writing the drill for the fall season.
Year two (this academic year) has been the first year where I've tackled the true full responsibilities of my job, and it feels like it's been a constant uphill battle of deadline after deadline and project after project. a lot of that i put on myself - I dip myself into a lot of projects despite being a generally lazy individual - a month ago amidst having about seven things on my plate, i added Babbling Rooks because i needed a new personally expressive outlet for my thoughts in a context where blogging was falling to the wayside.
All of the new stuff has had this interesting effect on my life in the office versus my life at home. Before, i could go home, chill into some more relaxing clothes, cook, do a few other things, but then i could also still find the time and the motivation to push forward creative projects. Now, my work day is generally occupied enough that by the end of most days i'm truly exhausted and what i need more than anything else is a zone-out - cook when i get the chance, throw on an episode of some telly show i have on my Plex server, maybe play a video game, and then collapse. This ignores times when i'm social, which is another factor in this whole thing - my move from Uptwon to Mid-City has given me a more substantial local social life than i've had before, and that, in addition to downtime, is something that's important to me to maintain life balance with the craziness that happens at work.
What this has ultimately resulted in is that i'm not terribly productive when i go home at all any more because i associate home with relaxation and zone out time. And recently what that has meant has been pseudo-negative side effect of me staying in the office much longer than i have in the past so i can stay productive and hit my deadlines.
That's not the only motivating factor, I also stay Uptown more often because my Pump It Up machine is located here, and it's still important for me to try to get a workout on that thing once or twice a week. Babbling Rooks is also something that Kyle and I have scheduled on Wednesday evenings at 11:00pm to record and since some of the equipment we use to record are things i borrow from the department of music and since i'm usually here until 7:30pm anyway due to rehearsal, i usually just stick around the office and use that time to catch up on more office stuff or take a nap on the office floor.
The primary point is that it's interesting this psychological effect I have concerning the office versus home. Sure, sometimes i slack off in the office during slow periods or sometimes i'll work on a personal project along with my work stuff which cuts into some of the productivity, but in general the office is what i perceive to be the Productive Place where i get shit done, work related or no, and home is now where i do nothing productive with even personal projects aside from cooking.
I'm thinking of changing my home setup some to maybe help this out - there's a space where i have an old desktop computer that i hardly use anymore and i feel like if i can reconfigure that space for both the desktop when necessary and maybe a laptop docking station i could maybe change some of the aesthetic to include productivity at home, if for no other reason than being able to put on shorts and a t-shirt.
My whole project and personal life needs a reevaluation anyway once the school year ends - next year i think i need to pull back on a couple of my projects in a way that can help me stress out less and re-kick my professional composition life into gear which is the thing that's taken the biggest hit, and that's the part of my life that i don't really want to give up - i need to start writing music regularly again. We'll see how that all shapes up.
Year one (2014-15) was a push up in responsibility, but it was also eased by the fact that there was a transition period when Mark left, meaning that he was the one that was still responsible for arranging the music and writing the drill for the fall season.
Year two (this academic year) has been the first year where I've tackled the true full responsibilities of my job, and it feels like it's been a constant uphill battle of deadline after deadline and project after project. a lot of that i put on myself - I dip myself into a lot of projects despite being a generally lazy individual - a month ago amidst having about seven things on my plate, i added Babbling Rooks because i needed a new personally expressive outlet for my thoughts in a context where blogging was falling to the wayside.
All of the new stuff has had this interesting effect on my life in the office versus my life at home. Before, i could go home, chill into some more relaxing clothes, cook, do a few other things, but then i could also still find the time and the motivation to push forward creative projects. Now, my work day is generally occupied enough that by the end of most days i'm truly exhausted and what i need more than anything else is a zone-out - cook when i get the chance, throw on an episode of some telly show i have on my Plex server, maybe play a video game, and then collapse. This ignores times when i'm social, which is another factor in this whole thing - my move from Uptwon to Mid-City has given me a more substantial local social life than i've had before, and that, in addition to downtime, is something that's important to me to maintain life balance with the craziness that happens at work.
What this has ultimately resulted in is that i'm not terribly productive when i go home at all any more because i associate home with relaxation and zone out time. And recently what that has meant has been pseudo-negative side effect of me staying in the office much longer than i have in the past so i can stay productive and hit my deadlines.
That's not the only motivating factor, I also stay Uptown more often because my Pump It Up machine is located here, and it's still important for me to try to get a workout on that thing once or twice a week. Babbling Rooks is also something that Kyle and I have scheduled on Wednesday evenings at 11:00pm to record and since some of the equipment we use to record are things i borrow from the department of music and since i'm usually here until 7:30pm anyway due to rehearsal, i usually just stick around the office and use that time to catch up on more office stuff or take a nap on the office floor.
The primary point is that it's interesting this psychological effect I have concerning the office versus home. Sure, sometimes i slack off in the office during slow periods or sometimes i'll work on a personal project along with my work stuff which cuts into some of the productivity, but in general the office is what i perceive to be the Productive Place where i get shit done, work related or no, and home is now where i do nothing productive with even personal projects aside from cooking.
I'm thinking of changing my home setup some to maybe help this out - there's a space where i have an old desktop computer that i hardly use anymore and i feel like if i can reconfigure that space for both the desktop when necessary and maybe a laptop docking station i could maybe change some of the aesthetic to include productivity at home, if for no other reason than being able to put on shorts and a t-shirt.
My whole project and personal life needs a reevaluation anyway once the school year ends - next year i think i need to pull back on a couple of my projects in a way that can help me stress out less and re-kick my professional composition life into gear which is the thing that's taken the biggest hit, and that's the part of my life that i don't really want to give up - i need to start writing music regularly again. We'll see how that all shapes up.