My attempt at not doing "too much"

[Chicken lady]

So, for this week I'm going to try to have one large time and one small time job each day. This is in addition to the things I do every work day, which are:
make dh breakfast and pack his lunch
morning chores with milking
dishes
paint boards
at least one load of laundry
Dinner
evening chores with Easter egg hunt

yesterday my big focus was the barn stalls because they are really bad. It was actually too much job for one day. I cleaned two, and I have three to go. Normally I clean bathrooms on Mondays, but that is a large time job, so I just did the toilets as my small time job.

i'm also trying to balance inside, outside, and away stuff.

so today, I'm going to process milk (which is building up) as my large time job - inside, and depending on the weather, either rake out the run - in area or pick some blackberries as my outside, small job.

[Zoe Girl]

That seems like a good way to balance, one big and one little. It is a challenge when you don't have a set schedule, a list from a boss, etc. to not spend all your time working! I know that with my job that changes a lot every day. I try to balance paperwork time and spread that out over the week and program time with the kids and staff. Sometimes the balance gets very off and I feel it. Last weekend I knew I had several things to do and so I did half the laundry on Thursday night knowing that I wouldn't have the entire weekend to just do housework. I am already pacing out this week since our last day of camp is Friday and I have to move all my camp materials by the end of Monday and lead our meditation group that night. I wasn't able to pace out the move into camp very well and it was exhausting. During the school year I have one day a week that just ends up being over 10 hours, sometimes 2. Then on Friday I plan to go in about 12 or 2 as flexing my time out. It worked pretty much all last year, only a couple Fridays that I came in earlier.

Do other people have these kind of lives? Jobs where the time is not strictly scheduled to office hours?

[Tammy]

My job involves highly intense 12 hour shifts that generally don't allow for a break. I eat while I answer phone messages throughout the shift in my office. There are shifts where I only spend a few hours on my office and the rest is running to the various units that are having problems. 12 hours often becomes 13-14 hours. I'm a nurse supervisor in charge of a building with 90 some patients.

However, this is balanced by the fact that when I'm not there, I am completely not there. No on call, nothing.

I work 2-3 shifts a week.

It's a good balance to have several days off every week.

This is the best balance I've found in nursing. I've spent almost 20 years in various nursing jobs, almost never certain that I would get a lunch break.