Permission for a holiday away from your goals

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Permission for a holiday away from your goals

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

I’ve done a lot in the past year, career wise… No one could possibly accuse me of slacking.

I went through weeks at a time when I worked from the time I got home until the time I went to bed. Dinner was chosen for its quickness of preparation and subsequent quick cleanup; minutes could not be wasted.

It was worth it though: I have never grown so much skill and amassed such a collection of projects that I’m pretty proud of, as I have in the past year. This constant “home work” has been great for my career too: bview is now a site I’m proud to say I’ve worked on (even though it’s not perfect and still needs work… it’s a big site, after all!), and I can easily wack out new designs and code them up quickly. A year ago, I was okay. With all this extra side projects, I’m pretty good now.

But I’m tired of working every evening.

I know I should be working on graffed and theboxcat and finishing my redesign of safetygoat, making a new mould of safetygoat, and getting started on the multitudes of other projects I keep thinking about.

But, I finally admitted to myself that I need a break. I want my evenings back.

I want to read my Terry Pratchett books over and over. I want to watch countless episodes of CSI and My Name is Earl. I don’t want to spend time writing code, designing websites, networking, drawing, doing ANYTHING productive or work on ANYTHING that will make me better.

I feel guilty feeling this way.

But you know what, just like a holiday away from your job, I think it’s important to step away from your passions and the things you really enjoy, so that you can come back to them fresh. That way, you don’t come to resent your projects, and you do them properly.

Until next week, safetygoat’ll be off after-work holidays and back at it. See you then!

safetygoat is on holidays!

designer on holiday taking a break working too much news random

4 comments

Luc says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:09 pm

I feel exactly the same – I’ve given up most of my evenings for the past year(!) to personal projects and freelancing, but it’s got to stop. To work towards that point, I’ve stopped taking on new projects, and have written a big to-do list that stares me in the face every day – I’m slowly ticking things off and can see that by Xmas (I’m at least realistic), I’ll going to be spending my evenings with my friends, playing Xbox and watching TV, like any normal person does.

I expect that to last for about 3 weeks, until some project I really want to do comes up…
Oliver Ker says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:15 pm

Im of the exact same notions at the moment. I love what I do and have been trying to start up Oliver Ker Design for the last year and its getting to a point where I nearly have enough work to go full time freelance but not quite (will I ever be ready?).

I think most designers go through this stage where evenings ‘disappear’ and we decide we need them back.

For me its at the stage I need to decide on where I go next.
Enjoy your evenings with (the other) Ollie K.

‘Next Chapter please…’
Emily H says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:29 pm

I don’t know how full-timers like you Kassy manage to spend all your evenings working. I’m lucky enough to work for myself, and from home, but this does mean that by the time I get up from my desk at the end of the day I have no desire to return to it.

Perhaps this sounds healthy – I certainly eat well as I love to cook and that’s often what I spend my evenings doing – but it is also really frustrating because my personal projects are almost entirely neglected.

I admire those of you motivated enough to go home and work on personal projects and I think you should congratulate yourselves, as Kassy has done, for all that hard work. But I completely agree that a holiday every now and then is required. And that holds true when you work for yourself too – I forget to schedule regular holidays away from running my business and I have suffered from neglecting to give myself time-off.
Ollie Kavanagh says:

July 22, 2009 at 9:40 am

I went through the same period a few weeks back, you just get complete burnout. I want to go back to spending time with my friends, g/f (kat) and enjoying my evenings rather than working. Or at least finding a good balance to working sometimes and then taking a few weeks off.

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Luc says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:09 pm

I feel exactly the same – I’ve given up most of my evenings for the past year(!) to personal projects and freelancing, but it’s got to stop. To work towards that point, I’ve stopped taking on new projects, and have written a big to-do list that stares me in the face every day – I’m slowly ticking things off and can see that by Xmas (I’m at least realistic), I’ll going to be spending my evenings with my friends, playing Xbox and watching TV, like any normal person does.

I expect that to last for about 3 weeks, until some project I really want to do comes up…

Oliver Ker says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:15 pm

Im of the exact same notions at the moment. I love what I do and have been trying to start up Oliver Ker Design for the last year and its getting to a point where I nearly have enough work to go full time freelance but not quite (will I ever be ready?).

I think most designers go through this stage where evenings ‘disappear’ and we decide we need them back.

For me its at the stage I need to decide on where I go next.
Enjoy your evenings with (the other) Ollie K.

‘Next Chapter please…’

Emily H says:

July 21, 2009 at 9:29 pm

I don’t know how full-timers like you Kassy manage to spend all your evenings working. I’m lucky enough to work for myself, and from home, but this does mean that by the time I get up from my desk at the end of the day I have no desire to return to it.

Perhaps this sounds healthy – I certainly eat well as I love to cook and that’s often what I spend my evenings doing – but it is also really frustrating because my personal projects are almost entirely neglected.

I admire those of you motivated enough to go home and work on personal projects and I think you should congratulate yourselves, as Kassy has done, for all that hard work. But I completely agree that a holiday every now and then is required. And that holds true when you work for yourself too – I forget to schedule regular holidays away from running my business and I have suffered from neglecting to give myself time-off.

Ollie Kavanagh says:

July 22, 2009 at 9:40 am

I went through the same period a few weeks back, you just get complete burnout. I want to go back to spending time with my friends, g/f (kat) and enjoying my evenings rather than working. Or at least finding a good balance to working sometimes and then taking a few weeks off.

Safetygoat