(no subject)

[eirias]

Clarification about my poll:

1) When I said "scheduled time" I meant "time where you have to be in a particular place." So I would count all eight hours of a typical 9 to 5 job as scheduled time. I would also count travel time, your kid's Little League practice, weekly club meetings, etc. as scheduled time. Me, I have almost no scheduled time because nobody cares where I am as long as I get "enough" work done.

1a) I admire people who can schedule themselves and stick to the schedule, but this was not what I was thinking about when I wrote the question!

2) I probably should have included a question like, "How good is your mental/emotional state on a typical workday?" Oh well!

Still, I am glad to see that desired busyness varies as expected (now I just have to hope it's real variance and not an artifact of question interpretation ;) ).

Comments

[tla]

Oh. Answers changed accordingly, then.

[kirin]

Ah, much better. But still with plenty of room for misunderstanding/interpretation. ;)

For example... so, I'm counting travel time in the morning. Do I also count the fact that I have to get up at least 40 minutes before I leave because I can't function without breakfast and it would be rude to show up without at least minimal grooming? It's all necessities so I'm inclined to count it.

Next, I found myself in the odd position of putting "better" for both more and less scheduled time. This is because you count "club meetings" and such... hence, days with more scheduled time usually involve things I'm choosing to schedule specifically because I enjoy them, hence good. But less than normal means I'm off work for some reason, which is also fun.

(Note that all this may make it sound like I hate my job, which is far from the case. There are just other things I enoy more (or simply enjoy equally but don't get to do as much).)

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Well, as for grooming I don't know how I would count that. I think I will leave it up to individuals to decide that.

But the work vs. play thing is very intentional -- some people like to have every last minute of their day scheduled, some people prefer to be totally flexible. And maybe some people prefer play time to be open but work time to be scheduled or vice versa, but I didn't have time for subtleties like that when writing the poll ;). Mostly I just see some friends who get unhappy when they have free time and other friends who get unhappy when they don't and I'm just wondering what the natural variance of this is in the population.

One exam week I talked to a guy who had taken 33 credit hours that semester. Granted, many of these were music-ed-major one-hour-per-week instrumental classes or ensembles, but still, it kept him busy. Once the semester was done he didn't know what to do with himself anymore. He had this weird blank look in his eyes like, now what?

[kirin]

Right... the trouble with the short poll is it doesn't capture the fact that work vs. play doesn't necessarily correspond to scheduled vs. unscheduled in any particular way. So in my case, less schedule often indicates more play *and* more schedule may also be more play.

And given that I've said that the work wasn't even so bad in the first place, really all this is revealing about me is that I'd rather not do *any* single thing for 40+ hrs/week. ;)

[ksledgemoore.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that non-work things like my tap class were scheduled time. I'm going to change my answers.

[aquamindy.livejournal.com]

I'm in an odd boat like you. I don't have a necassary fixed schedule even though I answered I do. See I work out of my car travelling around nthe western side of northeast Ohio all day, by myself. As long as I turn in orders, it doesn't matter how long I work. I could spend 2 hours sitting at home on the phone or 10 hours on the road, but as long as I'm showing progress it's all good with the boss.

I've found I need to set goals for myself, otherwise, I hit the places I need to and than end up spinning my wheels. I try to be out working from 9-5 Mon-Thurs. I try to hit min of 15 stops a day, with 2 being cold calls. On top of all this I add studying to this fun.

You need to find what works for you and your field. Working X number of hours might not be a good measure. But every field does has some measurement.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Hm, I don't agree with that idea of scheduled. At least, it's not the idea I used :). As I mentioned earlier, I have to be at work something like 7:45 to 3 (contractually), and longer if I actually want to finish, but I only think of my *scheduled* time as the bits where what I'm doing is dictated. So, for me, that's 4.5 hours in a typical day. But, sheesh. If you're counting all that -- I have to leave home at 7 (plus or minus), work until at least 4 and usually later to get everything done (my actual departure time varies between 3 and 6), and then bike home. So, in a normal day, I get home at 6, plus or minus an hour. So, if you're counting that way, 11, I guess. 12 on Mondays (we have faculty meetings so I'm there until 6). Mondays suck.

Does this mean you consider my residential colleagues to be scheduled 24 hours a day?

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Oh -- and if that's what you consider to be scheduled time, well then, I feel worse on days when I have more than that scheduled, for what I hope are obvious reasons. And better with less, to an extent. I think my ideal weekday would contain 6-7 hours of at-work-type work, plus biking.

[rshruti.livejournal.com]

I answered the poll but I don't think it captures my life well. I have a ton of time scheduled between work and teaching, and that's intentional, but if I get a day off, I'm usually relieved.. I need time to recharge once in a while. But if it lasted more than a few days I'd start getting itchy to do something productive. And I have plenty of projects at home that I could use extra time to catch up on, so it would be a while before I was bored enough to not know what to do with myself.

[ayb2.livejournal.com]

My schedule varies widely from month to month, but when I'm on the ward, I'm expected to be AT the hospital from probably 7:45 to 4-6ish, and every 4th night, I stay there until almost noon the next day. So that whole time, someone expects me to be available, but if nothing's going on in the evening, theoretically I can watch tv or take a nap. On good nights I get >3 hrs of sleep, on bad nights, I may not see my bed.

On months that I have elective, like now, my schedule is 8:30 to 5ish, and weekends off except for some backup and crosscover call days. It's very nice having weekends off.

In terms of mental state, I like being there unless it's so busy I don't have time to eat or go to the bathroom. At those times, I guess I feel slightly unhappy and anxious about the fact that I'm hungry and uncomfortable but other people are sick and need work to be done.

But otherwise, it's not bad, and I'm happy when we get a nice answer as to what's wrong with someone who's sick and we can fix it.