I’ve been wrestling with the DayJob lately, they have been loading me up with work. It hasn’t started to push into my free time yet (though I see that coming), but it has sapped a lot of my energy and focus.

When I started this crazy art venture, I wasn’t overloaded at work. Every now and then I would have to work late to catch up, but it was infrequent. Now, however, I have a constant, heavy, stressful load of work.

By the time I get home from work at 6pm, after stressing about the 3 jobs I have due in the next 2 weeks to 2 months, as well as the “gotta have it now” emergency work that gets thrown my way, I am mentally drained. I am not in a mental position to focus on writing, editing audio or video, and most of all, art, which requires plenty of focus.

I am not one of those crazy powerhouses of energy that can go and go and go.

Is it just me?

I have a feeling that a lot of jobs are like this, and a lot of people’s lives are like this. Fresh in the morning, drained in the evening. I hear this from my coworkers, later in the afternoon, their brain is fried, they can’t focus on stuff anymore, and not much gets done.

By the time work is over, and the commute home is complete, there isn’t much energy left for mush else. Food. Booze. TV. It’s not that I don’t have time to work for a few hours in the evening, it’s that I don’t have the capacity to work in the evening.

Most evenings, when I get home from work, I want a big plate of food, a few beers or glasses of wine, and to sit and blither out watching TV or some movie. I don’t even like TV (except Lost, that show is tha bomb), but it feels good after a long day at work. It feels like I am relaxing and more so, recovering.

I really believe this is why TV is so popular. It’s not what’s on TV, but what everyone does all day before they watch TV. There isn’t much left upstairs for anything else after slaving away.

So… what to do about it?

After all, I want the fire back. I wake up with it, and it is dim by the end of the day.

Honestly, I’m not sure.

I’ve been cranking up my diet, eating healthier foods, that helps.

I give myself my best time, ie. the morning. I just have to teach myself how to wake up early on a consistent basis.

I think that adding physical exercise to the mix will help. I may start doing some sort of physical activity first thing when I get home. I’ll try this out and see how it goes.

What about you? Do you have any secrets about how to recharge after a long stressful day of slaving in the spice mines? I’d like to hear it. I haven’t solved this one yet.

I will solve this one. It is just going to take some work, practice, problem solving, and trial and error.