Current struggles with time

I’ve been struggling with my time management and with setting boundaries to work during COVID-19. Teaching remotely meant spending much more time on teaching, being there for my students meant putting in more time for one-on-one tutoring, and I’ve been more distracted because of the general worry about the state of the world, which makes me work more slowly. The result of these extra demands on my time, is that I’ve just spent a lot of time working. While the ideal for me is to have clear boundaries, and not work much more than 40 hours a week, I find myself averaging between 60 and 65 hours a week at the moment. I’m using a writing block in the early morning before every one else wakes up. Then, I work a normal work day, with sometimes an extra early call or an extra late call. And then, after my daughter goes to bed, I often still put in some time working away the overflow of the day.

It’s easy to see that such a schedule is not sustainable, but I’ve found it increasingly difficult to make better choices. The lack of a physical boundary between work and home life also makes it harder to put a boundary to work. I know that this overwork is a temporary side effect of the pandemic. When I get back to the office, and leave on time to take my daughter to her activities, I will have that hard stop there. But in the mean time, I hope to learn better how to set boundaries to work when the physical boundary is gone.