Taking A Step Back, Doing The Things You Enjoy To Recharge

Creating this website isn’t easy. Especially for a techy-twat like me. Then again, nothing in life is easy if you want to do it well. Everything I do, I try to do to the best of my ability.

For example, when driving the cranes, I could easily not worry about catching swings, listening to the slingers, marking reference points, blah de blah de blah. All the things you should do to be a good crane driver. But no. I use up lots of concentration levels to do the best I can.

Parenting is another example. If you have small kids, you could just stick them in front of the TV for hours or shove a phone or tablet under their noses until their eyes get fried with nonsense. But a good parent spends time with them, teaching them, disciplining, nurturing, stimulating their minds, helping with schoolwork, etc.

This is tiring, right? These things eat into our reserves. If you have lots of things to juggle at maximum effort, it can eventually lead to burnout. The other option is doing them all half-heartedly. Skimming through, scraping by, just about doing what’s necessary. Or not.

Well, that’s what has just happened to me. Burnout hits me from time to time. There used to be a period every three months or so where I’d get ill. My body and mind would shut down. Energy levels would be at their lowest. Fatigue, grumpiness, lack of motivation. I learnt how to manage that through various techniques, but recently, I’ve noticed the warning signs of slipping into the abyss.

Let me tell you what I’ve been up to.

As of writing this blog post, the website isn’t created. The content is being created. It’s more than a seed. It’s almost a sapling. A very young tree being cared for in the confinements of a greenhouse before it’s planted out in the elements of the big wide world.

So, like I said at the beginning, creating the website and all the things that go with it ain’t easy. A little while back, I was struggling to adjust an image to put in one of the articles, so I had a look at various tools to help. Photoshop became an option. But the free trial didn’t provide the necessary features to do what I needed. This led me to using what little resources I have to pay for a subscription.

I didn’t have a clue how to use the bloody thing, so I drafted my teenage son in to help. With his ever-confident attitude, he obliged, but between us, we fucked it up. So that got put on hold while I created other content for the website.

I tried to cancel the Photoshop subscription. But unfortunately, because I’m stupid, I didn’t read the small print. You have to sign up for a full year, and you get charged to cancel. I’ll openly admit that I did the same with DAZN, the boxing platform, as well. Seriously though, who reads the small print, right? Well, guess what? I do now. Always.

So, the time came where I needed to create a logo. I hired someone, but they couldn’t create what I needed. This made me decide to do it myself using Photoshop. I’m paying a tenner a month; I might as well use the bloody thing.

I bought a cheap online course to help me work my way around it. This is where the problems started. Although the course is very affordable, there are fucking loads of information on it. There are 21 sections that make up 225 video tutorials. You’re meant to watch each one once, then watch again while working along to the tutorial.

Here’s where the problems lie:

This information is overwhelming.

When I read books that are very confusing and challenging, it makes me tired. I end up nodding off. This is what’s happening when watching these tutorials.

2. I’m getting behind on my target.

I aimed to make the website live by November. It’s already November. God knows when I’m gonna finish this course to create the website. God knows how long actually creating the website is gonna take. This situation is stressing me out.

3. I’m pretty useless at the course.

Nearly every session I do, I cock it up, or my screen or functions aren’t the same as what’s on the tutor’s screen. There’s a community to ask questions, but I feel that I’m already taking the piss with the amount of questions I’m asking.

4. Apparently, I might have chosen the wrong software to use.

After getting halfway through the course, the instructor says that Adobe Illustrator is probably a better option than Photoshop for designing logos, because Photoshop uses pixels, which can be a problem if creating large images for T-shirts, posters, banners, etc.

Not that I’m envisaging my logo ever being up on a massive banner on the side of a building. But who knows, I might wanna create some quirky T-shirts one day.

5. Time is an issue.

I try to nick every possible spare minute to work on this project. But I work full time. The odd weekend as well. I also have a family at home. To do things successfully, you have to make sacrifices. That means sometimes upsetting my daughter if don’t have time to play a board game with her or help with her homework or practice playing tunes on the new keyboard she got so that we can impress everyone at Christmas. My son is at the age where he does his own thing, but my daughter is still very much a daddy’s girl.

Then there’s the running around after them and the jobs to do around the house or sorting out bills. You know, adulting stuff.

So, I feel guilty when I neglect these duties to work on my project. But also, I enjoy spending time with my clan, so I oblige sometimes because it is my duty, but more importantly, because I want to. But when I do, I get annoyed that my work isn’t getting done. It’s a catch twenty-two.

Again, this stresses me out.

On top of all this, Christmas is fast approaching. The job I’m on is coming to an end, so the hours have been cut right down, which is leaving me more skint than usual. When stress builds up, small problems become big problems.

I seem like I’m having a moan here, I know. I’m not, though. I’m pointing out the things that led me to become drained, disheartened, doubt myself, wonder what the point of all this hard work is. I’m sure you can relate to a certain degree. We all suffer from burnout at some point.

Well, here’s what I did about it.

I love writing. I’m in the final stages of writing a novel, which is paused to concentrate on this. I have short stories and poetry in multiple literary journal and anthologies. I’ve done well in competitions. Check them out here.

With this writing comes reading. Whether it be poetry, novels, short stories, whatever.

After watching some of the Photoshop tutorials one evening, not understanding any of them, and consequently becoming very tired and falling asleep at the laptop, I went up to bed and voiced my annoyance to Mrs Webb

She said to take a step back. She said to not worry if I don’t get everything ready when I want to. Don’t put too much pressure on myself. Do something else for a while.

So that’s what I did.

Step 1

Beside the bed, there’s a book of stories that has one of mine in. It’s been there for over a year, and I’ve only read a few of the stories. I went to bed a bit early, rather than strain my eyes in front of the laptop until late. And I picked up the book. And read. And read some more. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Step 2

When I woke up, I felt happy, recharged, positive. On the train to work, I didn’t do research for Construction Cogs or try to do any of the Photoshop tutorials or try to write an educational article with the aim of getting it ranked on Google.

No, I started writing this. My first personal blog post. Because, as I said, I love writing. Thin beauty was, I didn’t have to scour the internet for research or question people on technical matters or interview people or cross reference information or make sure the blog was structured right and the grammar is right and all the rest of it. No, the words spilled onto the page.

Step 3

Then, throughout the day, I decided to say yes when my daughter asked to spend time with me or get help with her homework. Because I enjoy spending time with her, and like The Rock said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

It doesn’t matter if I get a bit behind on my work. It doesn’t matter if after the course, I still don’t know what I’m doing. Because I’ll find a way. I usually do.

Step 4

The following morning, I got up a bit earlier to do some Qigong and Taichi training. And I vowed to do that every morning.

And because it’s quite up the crane at the moment, instead of drowning myself in laptop work or continuously watch YouTube to procrastinate, I sometimes just do nothing. I meditate or stretch or think or just have some nothingness.

What’s the point of all this?

You might wonder why I’m telling you all this. Well, my point is that life can get a bit hectic sometimes. It can seem like all work, no play. Trust me. There have been times where I’ve finished work at 9 or 10 o’clock each day, then travelled home and only had a bowl of cereal, if anything, then got up at 4:30 to do it all again.

It’s depressing. You start losing your identity. You start snapping at your loved ones. You wonder if there’s more to life. This can just as easily be the same for the person who looks after the home and kids.

Take a step back.

My advice is to slow down sometimes. Every now and then, drop everything to do the things you enjoy. The things that make you who you are.

Have a weekend off and go fishing. The odd weekend at work isn’t going to make you rich. Read a book. Have movie nights with the kids. If you have small kids, when you get home late, wake them up and say goodnight, hug em, maybe even read em a story. They’d love it.

Go watch your team play football. Do some knitting or sewing. Cook your favourite meals or bake a lovely cake. Go cycling, feel the wind on your face. Play your sport of choice, or the sport you played when you were a kid. Go to the gym. Go for a run. Get the blood pumping.

Most importantly, spend time with your family. Unless, of course, you don’t particularly like them. Then refer to the first tip. Go fishing for the weekend.

These things recharge you. They make you ready to tackle the world again. Because let’s face it, it’s a battlefield out there sometimes. And this point is crucial. If we’re less stressed and more content, we’re less likely to get into conflict in the workplace. We pick our battles more wisely. Which makes for safer, more productive, harmonious work.