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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

An unscheduled day off

I don't often take time completely off of writing, but yesterday, after spending the morning at the barn, I decided I needed a day off.

My unscheduled day off went great. Here's how I spent it:

* I bought myself lunch at Burger King on the way home from the barn to satisfy a craving I've been having off and on for several weeks.

* I watched a movie in the afternoon (something I've only done once or twice since I started freelancing).

* I browsed the Internet for about half an hour, without even a pretense of trying to work.

* Michael and I made and ate dinner together, then went to the grocery store.

* We watched a couple of episodes of The Sopranos.

* I finished off the day with a hot bath.

Although I started feeling a little guilty a little later in the evening, I still maintained my day-off mindset. I have days when I don't get much of anything done, but this is the first time in a while that I've planned it that way.

The relaxed mood was difficult to shake today, but I still don't regret my day off. There is something amazingly satisfying about watching a movie in broad daylight — it made me feel like a kid on summer break. I also think it was more fun to take it off at the last minute — if it had been a planned day off, it would have been filled with other obligations, and I wouldn't have had the same ability to kick back and relax.

I highly recommend the experience to any of my over-worked, over-stressed fellow freelancers!

4 comments:

Kathy@TheFlawlessWord said...

This is definitely something I don't do enough of, although I'm getting slightly better with taking off weekends at least. I've actually been contemplating taking a whole week off...going somewhere where there's no Internet connection so I CAN'T work. Do you think I could survive that long? LOL It's hard to imagine that just 10 years ago I didn't even own a computer.

Katharine Swan said...

Kathy,

I hear you on the weekends thing. I never really intend to work weekends, but usually end up having to catch up on something or other. And even if I don't work on the weekend, I always know I should be, so it's not really the same as taking a day off.

Jams said...

"if it had been a planned day off, it would have been filled with other obligations, and I wouldn't have had the same ability to kick back and relax."

This is so true. Sometimes it's difficult to give ourselves the freedom to relax, take a day off from obligation, and allow ourselves to settle into a break from routine. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Katharine Swan said...

Thanks for visiting, Bella! As it turned out, I enjoyed my day off so much that I didn't successfully kick the vacation mindset until Friday. ;o)

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