Over-learning and under-relaxing
With almost one month in my new job, I guess it´s time for a short review of and lessons I am currently learning.
I tend to leave for work shortly before 7 am and I am back home between 4:15 pm and 5:30 pm most days. As the industry is completely different than what I´ve done before I am learning a lot every day.
And on the side, I have the problem that I need to learn how to relax properly. I am noticing that I tend to consume too much non-fiction content in my private life, which feels like it impairs my focus and learning ability at work. Honestly, this is a hard pill to swallow for me, as I love learning about topics like productivity, knowledge management, journaling, philosophy… just to name a few.
I am trying to unwind my mind with journaling, but I learned that I need to keep my work-related journaling and my private journaling mostly separate. Thus, I am developing a short day-end review ritual at work where I jot down 5–10 things that I have to improve or things that went well. When I can´t get rid of a work-related thought at home I write it in a tiny dedicated journal and stick that into my journal at work. This works well, but not perfect so far.
Overall, I feel pretty stressed almost all the time. My gut tells me that it´s time to read “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walkers and implement habits to improve my sleep quality beyond taking supplements of melatonin and magnesium 30ish minutes before sleep. This will be on my to-do list for October when I´ll have a few days off.
One thing at work is that I am not used to having somebody who observes me almost all the time until I am used to the workflows related to machine A. In this laboratory an employee is either responsible for taking care of the workflows related to machines A and B, usually alternating every week.
Always having somebody to ask for next to you sounds nice in theory, but in my case, it feels a bit daunting and it feeds my insecurities and perfectionist tendencies as well. The fact that many things related to the first workflows a newbie is introduced to are just rules of thumb and barely supported by hard numbers makes it even harder for me to do a proper job.
I have a few interpersonal struggles with the person who is teaching me most of the time as well. She is just a few months into this job, came from a different department, and still doesn´t know everything by herself and has to teach a newbie. I value that she is doing the best she can, but having somebody who can´t give me an answer related to background knowledge more often than not isn´t satisfying for both of us. We try to make the best out of it with very open communication, which is all I can ask for.
I feel like I know most of the stuff I have to do in theory, except for a few small tricks and maintenance details which are needed once a week or less. The company has serious problems with getting people who are willing to work under these conditions (clean rooms all the time, very hazardous chemicals). I have low pressure to manage it all in a short period.
But I stress myself out a lot. This job has the high potential to become the long-term employment I have been hoping for since 2019. I am so tired of new contracts every 5–9 months, so I want this job, which is a 1 year+ contract now and may turn into an unterminated contract next year.
I try to do my best, but without learning how to rest properly things will just get harder. So far I have decluttered accounts I follow online by approx. 50% on almost all platforms as a first step.
The next step will be forcing myself to consume more fiction content, such as reading novels and getting back into the habit of watching one episode of anime during weekdays. I discovered this issue last week and well… Life gets in the way these days because of other life-admin issues. So for the near future, I´ll be fine with doing at least one of these. But the goal is to do both for the majority of the days. Maybe I´ll develop some kind of rule like “every third book is a non-fiction book” or “read non-fiction only during off days from work”… I am not 100% sure where my journey will end concerning this issue right now.
Like many other things, my routines for house chores and blogging have to change as well. I feel that this month’s posts here are far away from my best ones… During this first month as a full-time employee I valued consistency over quality, to be honest. Related to this I try to get back to the habit of “coworking” with a friend in the library at least every other weekend to write more often. With mixed success so far.
I am also considering other stuff like meditation, and yoga, starting exercising again… But I don´t want to overcommit myself again, so for next month, I´ll focus on improving my sleep, consuming more fiction content, and developing an improved version of my writing/blogging routine. Everything else might be worth considering later.
Furthermore, I´ll have to tweak my system for knowledge and task management, as well as journaling, to the new conditions… But that will be the topic for a different post in a few weeks, as I am in a highly experimental phase right now.
