From Grad School to a 9–5: How to Adapt to a Full Time Job, Pt. 1
Hello! I’m Autumn, a new-to-the-workforce mechanical engineer. I’ve been working full-time for a little over a year now after completing my master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford. Full-time work is a brand new experience for me, since I went directly to grad school from undergrad.
I work at a small mechanical engineering consulting firm. Our team is almost exclusively engineers, so the work environment is pretty similar to what I experienced in school. That’s about where the similarities end, though. Adjusting to a full-time job was nearly a full-time job in and of itself, and I’ll be sharing my experience along with some tips, things I wish I had known, and things I’m still learning. This is the first in a four-part series, and today we’ll be talking about adult routine building.
If you’ve made it through undergrad or graduate school — first of all, congratulations! It’s likely that you’ve already gained some experience in working hard and learning quickly, but some areas you might be less experienced are basic adult lifestyle skills. You might think that potentially years of late nights and all-nighters would have you breezing through a 9-to-5. Odds are that won’t be the case — and that’s ok! While in school, there’s lots of transition time between activities even with a packed schedule, and you have way more flexibility to create your own schedule that works best for you. With many traditional jobs, there will be expectations about work hours, and often at small companies you’ll be working over 40 hours. What was challenging about adjusting to my job is that since we’re a consultancy, we bill our time — which means lunch time does NOT count towards a basic 8hr work day. If your job doesn’t time hours, you may find yourself spending long social lunches with your new coworkers. While that isn’t necessarily “work” time, it still contributes to a long day that you might not be used to. Consecutive work hours with no naps is quite an adjustment!
What really helped me adapt to this new lifestyle was figuring out a solid routine that made me feel ready for the day. Some things that I found particularly helpful were consistent exercise and joyful movement, reasonably good nutrition and moderate meal prep, and consistent bedtimes.
Food Time!
When I had my meals prepared for the day and at least partially planned out for the week, I wasn’t running out for lunch because I had forgotten something. Having food at home to bring in or something you can easily prepare helps you from spending too much mental energy on feeding yourself, and let you be more mindful about when you do want to grab lunch out of the office with coworkers or a nearby friend.
I go through phases of how well prepared I am in terms of food. I tend to be a little hard on myself when I’m not organized enough on the weekend to do real grocery shopping, and one thing I could do better at is having more really easy freezer or canned meals when I’m too busy or frankly having too much fun on the weekend to do proper meal prep. Remember — it’s not about being perfect! Getting some backups in place when times are chaotic will help you still feel like you have some control (and will give you some more headspace to focus on getting through a rough patch).
While there’s a ton of pressure to have ~perfect nutrition~ all the time, it’s not super realistic for the average college grad (let alone the average American). Some days it’s just about getting some basic nutrients into your body, and that’s ok. Watching cooking shows, especially Chopped (where the contestants have to bring together four, often completely unrelated, ingredients to make cohesive plates…sounds like my refrigerator right now!) has really helped me develop my cooking knowledge base. Whether you love or hate what Buzzfeed is doing, they do have some pretty rad recipes and meal ideas even if you don’t like cooking.
Joyful movement
This will look different for everyone, depending on your physical abilities, access to gyms and classes, and personal preferences. You may be a total gym rat, or could be obsessed with spin classes. What I like to do depends on how I’m feeling — I usually like to do weightlifting, but after some long days at work I need a long walk instead. If you go the gym route, your commute and daily schedule can also have an impact on what you choose to do. Give yourself permission to NOT pursue things you know you hate. It can feel great to know you’ve made an active decision to never run a marathon or become a powerlifter, and frees you up to focus on things you actually enjoy doing. What’s important here is finding what works for you and makes you feel as though you’re taking care of your body, not punishing it.
My first year out of school, I joined a ~fancy gym~ that was located a walk- and bike-able distance from my office. I drove in early to work and got a workout in usually before work. This was a great setup for my first year — the high price tag was a good incentive to actually utilize it, while the beautiful space and nice amenities made sure I enjoyed my time while I was there. I also signed up for a number of personal training sessions to help figure out a workout plan that was a good fit for me. As my first year contract was ending, it was time to reevaluate. Biking down Market St. in San Francisco was especially chaotic after work, so if for some reason I didn’t get to the gym before work I really didn’t want to go afterwards, and not going at all if I had originally planned to usually left me feeling grouchy. The time it took to get from my office to the gym and back was also feeling draining on top of my regular commute. I also didn’t take any of the classes, which made me feel like I wasn’t completely getting my money’s worth and contributed to not feeling a sense of community at the gym. So I decided that this experiment was ready to be done! I had achieved my main goals of developing an exercise habit and getting stronger. I switched to a climbing gym that’s really easy to stop by on my drive in and out of work, was less than half the cost of my old gym, and has the basics I need for lifting and getting showered and ready for work. In my journey of figuring out what works for me, it was important to recognize that there’s a difference between lack of adherence to a routine because of false barriers you put up for yourself, and avoiding something because it genuinely doesn’t work for you. If you’re not sure which is which, you can approach it as an experiment. One example — I was going to try leaving work at 4 to go to the gym and go home, and it was clear within two days that this was not for me.
Evening Routines
Finally, consistent bedtimes. Confession upfront — I am not the best at having my evening routine figured out or the best sleep hygiene. I’ll watch TV before bed, sleep with my phone next to me, have an evening beer…you get the idea. However, I’m fairly consistent about going to bed at the same time. I have gotten to that point by having a pretty set wakeup time — I usually don’t adjust it by more than half an hour. I find that having a consistent wakeup time is the best way to get yourself to wake up early. If you refuse to budge your alarm, you’ll probably find it easier to get yourself into bed sooner because you’ll be tired sooner. If you can always make your wake up time later, why would you go to bed sooner? Obviously, there will be some weeks that you have to sleep in more and be flexible about your wake up time (I started out this week with a sinus infection, skipped the gym and slept in), but having a normal baseline that works for you helps you know if you’re getting out of sync with your routines, and able to examine why that might be.
Some things that I’m currently working on changing around my evening routine is reading before bed, and winding down from TV or other screen activity well before I actually want to go to sleep. I’ve recently discovered audiobooks, which is another nice way to fall asleep or get ready for bed — I’ll have one playing while I do my skincare and get my bag together for the morning.
With all of items above, it’s important to remember that this will not happen overnight, nor should it! It took me literally a YEAR to even figure out what worked best for me, and I’m still figuring out how to do the things that work for me now from day to day. Change habits one at a time. It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea of transforming your life in one sweeping go, but the reality of that is it’s nearly impossible to keep up with. I’m taking the approach of making 1 or 2 small changes a week, and seeing how I like the change. The most important thing is being open to learning what works best for you, separate from what works for other people.
If you enjoyed reading, be sure to join me on Twitter. I’d love to read about what challenges you’ve come up against in adapting to a 9–5, and insights you have. I’ll be back next week with the next part in this series — ramping up at your job.