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vcmwIn order to make it to being a professional librarian, I put in a ton of outside-of-work energy. Not more than any other struggling young professional I suspect - I volunteered a few hours a week at a local public library, went to grad school half time, read a bunch of listservs, read magazines, interviewed people, went to conferences (1 national, 1 regional, 1 state) and so forth, while working full time over the course of two years.
Then I graduated, and I spent nine months working two part time jobs while job hunting, volunteering at the local library in several roles, and doing a lot of extra work for the library I did work at to build up my experience in my hunt for a professional position.
Now that I've landed a professional position (and I love it!), I'm struggling to realign my priorities. I work part-time, so my impulse is to constantly invest extra work and energy into my professional position. It has been gently pointed out to me by my supervisor and coworkers that I need to not work for free for the people I'm also working for for money, or at least to please not do it so much.
So now I need to figure out how I'm going to reinvest all that energy into other areas of my life - whether by starting to develop some kind of non-work professional goal, or working out more, or working on writing more, or... to be honest, the prospect has depressed me a bit, in that "I'm terrified of making decisions" kind of way.
Choosing how to invest your time is a big deal. I have a lot of time to invest here, since we're talking about almost 40 hours a week of time that are available to me now that weren't available 3 years ago. (Full time work (40 hrs) + half time school (10 hrs) + volunteering (10 hrs) = 60 hours a week of commitments, on average, in 2004, vs. Half time work (20 hrs) + volunteering (2 hrs) = 22 hours a week of commitments on average going into 2008.) So far my time has been fruitlessly though enjoyably spent in extra sleep and reading lots of trashy novels. Also in lolling about with the newspapers in coffeeshops. And, of course, in doing lots of off-the-job learning to support my new roles on-the-job. But I've been in a bit of a doldrum trying to figure out how to best use my time over the next year or two. Any suggestions are much appreciated, even if they're just "lighten up!"
Then I graduated, and I spent nine months working two part time jobs while job hunting, volunteering at the local library in several roles, and doing a lot of extra work for the library I did work at to build up my experience in my hunt for a professional position.
Now that I've landed a professional position (and I love it!), I'm struggling to realign my priorities. I work part-time, so my impulse is to constantly invest extra work and energy into my professional position. It has been gently pointed out to me by my supervisor and coworkers that I need to not work for free for the people I'm also working for for money, or at least to please not do it so much.
So now I need to figure out how I'm going to reinvest all that energy into other areas of my life - whether by starting to develop some kind of non-work professional goal, or working out more, or working on writing more, or... to be honest, the prospect has depressed me a bit, in that "I'm terrified of making decisions" kind of way.
Choosing how to invest your time is a big deal. I have a lot of time to invest here, since we're talking about almost 40 hours a week of time that are available to me now that weren't available 3 years ago. (Full time work (40 hrs) + half time school (10 hrs) + volunteering (10 hrs) = 60 hours a week of commitments, on average, in 2004, vs. Half time work (20 hrs) + volunteering (2 hrs) = 22 hours a week of commitments on average going into 2008.) So far my time has been fruitlessly though enjoyably spent in extra sleep and reading lots of trashy novels. Also in lolling about with the newspapers in coffeeshops. And, of course, in doing lots of off-the-job learning to support my new roles on-the-job. But I've been in a bit of a doldrum trying to figure out how to best use my time over the next year or two. Any suggestions are much appreciated, even if they're just "lighten up!"
