I am coming across something I never thought could happen. Actually that stage is probably worse than overloaded: I am idle. It has been a while now, I used the free time it was giving me to prepare for my wedding but now I have to see it face to face. The function of research within a service company that has NOCs as client (sole, so far) is not the fast'n furious style where I have no life. On the contrary I have to learn that I can have a real life outside, made of activities and it also mean that I have to engage with my wife on a lot of things. It is cool actually, I quite enjoy that - I suppose - but I am not yet familiarized with the idea. I am chased by remorse after a day where I cannot measure the work I have done during the day. I used to sit in the morning with a pile of tasks as big as a mall and not leaving the base till I have walked it 250 time through to chase the boys and ask them to do stuff. I was asked to dostuff too, I had my short term, middle term, long term plans, weekly and quarterly report plus the EOMRs (End Of The Month Report) and all these tasks with abbreviations that make you feel like you're watching a tamil movie without subbs. I was staying 14h a day and piling for the next day, leaving the office my hears buzzing looking like a ghost: I had stuff to do. Now, if I have a meeting during the day I'm happy. I meet the client today, then he ask for a meeting next week to finish the task... what about tomorrow morning 6h30am???? sorry, got the kids, friends, movie to watch and my kid need a sister so we're busy and missy wont let me go back home so late at night. Not been able to measure your work is probably the most frustrating of all when you had the feeling of what you were doing during the course of a day. The first time I arrived I thought I would start my project the next, ignoring people's advice on not believing what they say about starting ASAP because we're in a hurry to get results. They did not tell me that in between would go the national bank holidays, Xmas, NYE, Carnival and their own birthday. Each delaying the whole process by a week, and Xmas/NYE/Carnival meant no potential work in between. So I have to learn to manage my free time to be ready when the pressure will quick in. Some experience that even after almost 18 month I am not fully mastering (meaning not at all).
I used to be in this world, I did a PhD so I know what research means, but when you do your PhD you have a goal, a deadline, a set of tasks pre-determined by your thesis coordinator and so on and so on. He, actually, knows how to manage the time that looks free but that you need to master entirely. Time is of the essence, to be more precise, of the issue. I have to learn to make the most out of the free time that I have to prepare myself for the quick and I never learnt it. I need to fill my day with apparently meaningless things that actually will easy up my world when I'll be doing the research and I cannot seek anybody's help because it depends on the way I organize myself.
I think that, eventually, the goal of this period is to understand how to work when you do not have a set of tasks, but only a distant goal and no pre-defined roads to walk you through. I will have to develop that further because I think this is the answer to my late anxieties.
