Wow. What a week last week. And this week is shaping up to be even busier. Since all the new health insurance (including vision and dental) is now fully kicked in and active, I've a whole slew of appointments in the coming weeks. YAY! New glasses! YAY! Meeting with shrink! Lots of coming in late or leaving early. Which, would be nice except that I'm working on two big projects and there's lots to do.
Something that I haven't had to deal with a lot before - both of these projects have run into the "PC-Only" problem. I have a Mac. Most of my company uses a Mac. We have 1 company PC, and (as of this morning) one of Lane's old PCs. But we have user testing software that will only run on a PC, and client software that only runs on a PC, and another client site that behaves differently for a PC than a Mac. So, I need to have access to a PC to do the user testing, or the content audit, or the comparative analysis. Gak. Which sucks because it means I can't work at home at all. And when there is another project team who needs to do user testing at the same time, well, let's just say that the project managers have been working their scheduling mojo.
I would much rather be kept busy than sit around idly with nothing to do. But things around here seem to wax and wane with the feast or famine. I suppose that is the nature of consulting. But it seems I'm either overloaded with lots of meetings back to back, or I go all week sitting at my desk with no interaction with anyone. There has to be a way to balance that all out. I do my best work when I can be quiet and focus. But I like to break that up with interactions and meetings with others.
I also find that when my schedule gets packed, I start revving at a different level. I don't know if it's stress or what, but I'm more "on" all the time. Which is good (and required) for getting everything done. But it makes it that much harder to wind-down and relax when I need to. I end up just dropping at the end of the day. Hrm... why is this thing called "balance" so hard to achieve? It'd be so much easier if I could just download and install it between meetings. You know, like a system patch.
