Transfer-Wk 22,Wed.-Parkinson's Law wreaking havoc

As mentioned in my previous post; because I work from home on long term projects, I do not have scheduled commitments. Which Lori, my speech therapist, has pointed out as a lack of structure in my life and a possible reason for my scattered practice routine.

This lack of structure has contributed to a few problems in my life, which are not uncommon to those who start working from home. Problems usually include things like; interruptions, distractions, misplaced priorities, working all the time or not at all. When I first started working from home back in 1996, I felt guilty when not working. To emphasize the magnitude of what I’m saying; I felt guilty taking a break at 1:00am after working since 8:00am! … seriously.

I will work all day, all night, and weekends to complete something. I feel it’s part of the job, and IT IS part of the job … when I’m under the gun. Which based on past experience seems to be about every 3 months, but not year round!

So I appear to have inadvertently created a non-stop work day, where I’m available for work 24 hours, 7 days per week. And lately, I seem to be suffering from the effects of Parkinson's Law, which states "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".

So essentially; according to Parkinson’s Law, I’m filling a 98 hour work week* with 40 hours worth of work. As you can imagine this plays havoc on the remainder of my life, family, health, speech therapy, etc…
*98hrs = 16 waking hrs – 2 personal maint. hrs x 7 days

So here is what I’ve done; starting this past Monday, I’ve told my wife, that I will stop working at 6:00pm … no matter what. This has greatly crystallized my priorities through out my workday, since I know my wife will hold me to it. I mean there are still bugs to work out, but it’s definitely helpful so far.

Since I’ve started doing this, I know that if I can’t fit something in, it will get dropped. So I’m forced to make a conscious decision to do my therapy, or not … it doesn’t just fall off the end of my day any more. And since Monday, I’ve managed to fit my practice in every day.

It seems kind of odd, that my work schedule could possibly effect my speech therapy, but I suppose it’s a life problem which is interfering with my speech therapy. I guess it’s more of a holistic of approach to fixing my problem. But it does appear to be the beginning of the kind of structure I need to maintain any kind of success in my speech … let alone my life.

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Not meant as advice, please find a qualified therapist if you are interested in similar therapy.