To phrase it another way, you CAN cancel, and it would only cost you $3000 to do so.
If i told you that you could buy a widget that would solve a lot of your stress problems for only $3k, wouldn't that be worth it?
If you're nearly done and think you can do the bare minimum to pass and still be ok? Then go for it.
But your life, your wife, your physical health, your mental health and your children are ALL individually worth more than $3000.
If you start to feel like your ship is sinking, toss ALL of the non-essentials overboard.
I’m totally with you, I have gotten good grades so far so thinking of doing bare minimum to Pass (and stop feeling guilty about it) may be the way to go, the semester is almost over.
Oh man, what can I say except welcome to the modern curse of time poverty. It will get easier, and it will also get harder sometimes. It does sound like you are taking too much on - it's ok to say no sometimes. Maybe that doesn't have the same impact coming from a stranger, but I can't emphasize it enough - you are allowed to say 'no' to things, don't be pressured to fill every minute of the day with something 'productive'.
Also, whiskey at 10am is probably not the right approach :)
compartmentalize everything instead of seeing it as one big issue, tackle each thing as its own thing, this reduces the size of the "problem", helps you prioritise.
if it was me:
forget about the IBD, cant control it, it is what it is, so fuck it, not point stressing, just work around it
double income not needed? talk with the wife about part time or not working at all, this will help moving kids around and free up some mental space.
pause study, clearly too much on the plate right now, study is probably the easiest to put down and free up time and headspace
sit down with the wife and lay it all out on the table, make sure you are taking this on as a unit and listen to her worries and issues too.
unless there has been comments or meetings about your work, i wouldn't worry about letting anyone down, just focus on doing your best. clearing some of the above items will likely see an improvement anyway
switch GP's there is no rule you have to all go to the same one, and it does make sense for you to go to a different one because this one isn't working for YOU
get away from the booze now, just dont drink at all, before its too late
good luck
I might just do a Mind map or something to help compartmentilze a little. It’s been such a rough day that I broke down on the phone while my wife was at work so she ended up asking for part-time at her work or she’s quitting today. They seemed to have agreed to her going part-time so she can manage kids pickup and afternoons.
Everything at work always feels due yesterday, but end of the day you have to remember that you are only one person and can only do soo much in a day.
I’m running my team, and I feel like I have zero time for anything that needs to be done. I’m doing my best to leave work at work and not worry about work once I leave work as it does you no good to worry about work outside of work.
Drop the alcohol as it will be making you feel worse in your situation.
Focus on what you can do at work, and only that. You aren’t letting anyone down at work.
There’s days where I get 4-5 different people that this job is priority number 1, well I can’t do them all at once and I can only get one done at a time meaning the others get left behind and they get annoyed by that. But end of the day one of those tasks is a more important than the others so that’s the one I do first, the others can wait or do it themselves if they are pissed off enough that I’m not doing their task first as while it’s priority one for them, it’s not actually priority one for me.
> There’s days where I get 4-5 different people that this job is priority number 1
I see that all the time now as well. Was it always like this? Or did people somehow lose the ability to prioritize.
Different teams wanting different things done for their jobs, which all have different milestones.
More of a lack of communication and planning tbh.
As a lot of it can be done sooner than they need it to be done. Which is how you end up with 4-5 people saying that what they want done is priority number one(for them), but as you can’t do all of them at once, you got to pick and choose as to which is actually priority number one for the company.
I've been in this position before. If there's no improvement, one thing I tried was to pull all those people into one meeting and say 'you all have priority 1 items, but I can't do them all at the same time. So, you need to agree amongst yourself what the priority list is and I'll work to that. If you need to change the priority of your item, it's YOUR responsibility to get agreement from all the impacted parties to make that change to my list, before I will make a change to my list'.
Apparently it was good to give them context instead of saying 'I'm too busy' and it made them responsible for the workload they were shuffling to me.
But, I'm just a lowly BA and not a decision maker, so I was able to play into that lol
when the country as a whole is having a bad time financially, jobs get condensed, suddenly the receptionist is customer service, admin, accountant and partime packer. So now everyone is overflowing and pushing work on each other.
It wasn't always like this but we have had a few too many "once in a life time" financial crises that have really put the squeeze on
What I’m finding is that being in this mindset that I am in, I end up being even more unproductive because my mind is all over the place due to other things and the cycle worsens. I end up procrastinating on shit. IM mid management and have esrned enough trust among my peers that I get away with unproductive time but it makes me feel shit.
If you're anything like us, having a kid start school will likely mean a series of coughs and sniffles as they are introduced to a new soup of children-diseases. Multiple days off school will be required, and then you'll inevitably catch the same diseases. When my oldest started kindy and then school, I was sick for months on end, which wasn't great for my physical OR mental health. So keep up with the vitamin c, exercise, handwashing etc and hopefully you will avoid the worst of it.
I found kindy worse than school - but the first few years at school were pretty bad as well. Took the first couple of years to stop being a regular occurrence.
Does your company offer an Employment Assistance Program (EAP)? Highly recommend it if they do, it takes a lot of guts to ask for help, speaking to a counsellor could do a lot of good 😊
I agree. I usually only have 2-3 a week drinks usually on the weekend and often on Sunday night due to Monday anxiety. But today was a bad day and the fact that I was drinking at 9:30 prompted this post.
There’s a theme popping out in the advice in the comments so far and that is to consider dropping/pausing the study.
Your replies to this appear to be along the lines of “but I’ve already paid for it”.
Taking the study off your list of current “to-do’s” is a very actionable step that you are discounting.
Look at it this way: you will pay much more than $3k, if your life and family dissolves around you. Speaking from experience.
hey man, i've been in the same boat ride as you and still going through it. high work stress, two kids drop off and pick ups, both having to work to settle the bills, studying at night, mrs wanting seperate talk times, no one really around to talk and discuss these or have shit talk about shitty life etc etc. wasnt suicidal but my brain was touching up on thinking whether ending it would have been a simple choice. anyways, I ended up weighing things. e.g. is this really worth the stress? if i do this and if i miss out on important kids event, is it worth it? Will this person at work that i am doing work for, will he/she come to my funeral and look after my family if i pass away? - reality was that non of these work people would have looked after me nor my family if i died or in desperate times so i had to find something less stressful but flexible at the cost of $$. we did have to make significant cuts to spending but lot better than stressing all the time and feeling bad when i had to leave home early to pick up kids etc to upper management etc etc. yes i will probably never be able to pay off mortage and never afford fancy cars or holiday to Europe but just not having constant pressure and stress, i will live longer bit happier. cheer up man so i can cheer myself up
Thanks. I’ve definitely realised I’ve got too much on right now but feel I’ve already committed in many ways so I guess it’s a lesson for future once I get through this phase.
> I feel I’m letting my bosses and my team down
I have bipolar disorder. Literally every single fucking time I have thought this and had the courage to actually *talk* about it with my boss, it has turned out that it was just the depression brain talking. And that sometimes my mountains were constructed from such little molehills that it took a while for my boss to even figure out which trifling little incident was the massive catastrophe that I was trying to apologise for. And these talks have usually resulted in some clarification around expectations and priorities - turns out good bosses don't expect or want their employees to be constantly pushing themselves to the brink of burnout.
You've got a lot going on and it sounds like there's little to no time for you to do the things you need to do to keep yourself sane. I know it's really hard with young kids but here are a few things that come to mind for me. I'd highly recommended talking to a shrink for more personalised recommendations - when I need them I get my GP to refer me to the brief intervention service which gets me 5-6 free visits.
* You've talked about your wife potentially quitting her job. This means she could to take a lot of the parenting and housework/life admin load off you. And if you don't think carefully about your priorities, it means you're going to fill that time with work and study, and spend very little time actually being a parent. I know men who do prefer this dynamic of being the breadwinner and leaving the kids to the missus. I also know men who have fallen into by accident and are miserable because they hardly ever get to see the kids and feel like they're missing out on hands-on dad time. What balance between work and parenting do you want?
* Is there a way that you and your wife could both reduce your hours? When I was a preschooler both of my parents worked 4 days a week. They were very lucky that they could make that work financially of course, but I think it was great for them to each have a day where they could drop me off at kindy, take a few hours to rest, and then spend a chilled-out afternoon with the kids.
* Do you have much annual leave accrued? Could you take say one day a week until the end of the semester (I'm guessing that's only \~4 weeks away now?) so that you have dedicated time to study, and then that doesn't bleed into the rest of your life as much? Or even if you don't have much leave, would your boss agree to your taking a few days leave without pay? And then once the semester is over you can reassess how much workload you can actually take on next semester.
Can you go to a different GP at the same practice? If you outline things as you have here, including that you’re drinking to help deal with it, they will understand that you’re needing assistance.
How much leave do you have?
Drop both papers, take a month off, see a psychologist. Break the cycle before it is all entrenched and too hard to come back from.
It doesnt matter what struggles you have, you have struggles friend. I don't know if it's still available but if you are struggling some medical practices offer "Brief Intervention Counseling". It is really helpful to talk to someone who understands how very human we are.
Does your GP have a health improvement practitioner?
Does the university you are doing papers with have student support services you can talk to?
If you can survive on one income do you have the money in your budget to take some of the stress off the school pick ups and drop offs and look into hiring a caregiver who can help with that to take some of the stress off.
I'm sorry to hear you are having a rough time.
Also once the sick child is better, tall to one or two of your single friends and see if they'd like to take the day off and go on an adventure or have a catch up.
I feel your pain and feel like I could have written this myself. We’re family with 3 kids, 1 school, 1 preschool and a 1 yr old. Financially ok, in our own home, studying full time and husband working full time. My health is suffering like you, some from the busyness of life and an underlying condition.
I constantly feel pulled in all directions and being a perfectionist, it’s hard to settle for anything less than the standard I’ve set. So we try focus on one day at a time in terms of what needs to be done, getting more nappies or a doctors visit etc and count that as a victory. Reframing some of the ‘small’ things you do during the day as achievements or ticking it off the list has helped me. Because really it is an achievement when you have so much on your plate.
We’ve also hired 2 students to help us, as we have minimal family help too. One comes to do the garden for 4 hours once a fortnight. The other is helping with pickup/drop off on 2 trickier days for our school child. It’s a bit more admin sure but easier than me spending 4 hours in the garden when I’m already tired. Another mum I study with has their hired student helper do some meal prep and cleaning for them. Maybe that could be an option? Or a student to babysit the kids an evening or weekend. Even if you and your wife just sit in the garden for a cup of tea together and decompress. Not being needed by your kids, not being touched and not needing to do the next task.
My wife has gone down to 4days per wk and I've dropped any study plans. Im looking at dropping a day a week too. In hindsight the extra time with kids is far more valuable in these formative years if you can afford it. In most cases the extramural study is just a nice to have I reckon.
I honestly don't know how parents of young children survive with both parents working full time. And I don't think that's the way it is supposed to be and I think our whole community suffers for it being a necessity these days. Raising small children is a job in itself.
I recommend trying the free trial for an app called Reveri. It’s self hypnosis which sounds wacky but it was established by a reputable Stanford psychiatrist. It’s like meditation but way easier because you don’t have to focus very hard. They have stress exercises which really help compartmentalise different things you have going on. Then when you’re not overwhelmed it’s waaay easier to tackle things one by one and your pile gets smaller.
Also this isn’t at all meant in a judgy way, but I would recommend putting down the whisky. I like a drink but even small amounts of alcohol can affect your sleep and cognitive function, which makes it harder to handle all the stuff you have going on.
Is there anything you can drop from your plate? Do you NEED to keep doing both papers? Could you cancel or defer one or both of them?
I wish I could cancel but would lose $1.5k for each paper. At this point might just have to do the bare minimum to scrape through and pass it.
To phrase it another way, you CAN cancel, and it would only cost you $3000 to do so. If i told you that you could buy a widget that would solve a lot of your stress problems for only $3k, wouldn't that be worth it? If you're nearly done and think you can do the bare minimum to pass and still be ok? Then go for it. But your life, your wife, your physical health, your mental health and your children are ALL individually worth more than $3000. If you start to feel like your ship is sinking, toss ALL of the non-essentials overboard.
I’m totally with you, I have gotten good grades so far so thinking of doing bare minimum to Pass (and stop feeling guilty about it) may be the way to go, the semester is almost over.
Oh man, what can I say except welcome to the modern curse of time poverty. It will get easier, and it will also get harder sometimes. It does sound like you are taking too much on - it's ok to say no sometimes. Maybe that doesn't have the same impact coming from a stranger, but I can't emphasize it enough - you are allowed to say 'no' to things, don't be pressured to fill every minute of the day with something 'productive'. Also, whiskey at 10am is probably not the right approach :)
I have learnt that lesson, just feels there isn’t anything to say no too as too deep in it right now. Have to just get thru this phase I guess.
compartmentalize everything instead of seeing it as one big issue, tackle each thing as its own thing, this reduces the size of the "problem", helps you prioritise. if it was me: forget about the IBD, cant control it, it is what it is, so fuck it, not point stressing, just work around it double income not needed? talk with the wife about part time or not working at all, this will help moving kids around and free up some mental space. pause study, clearly too much on the plate right now, study is probably the easiest to put down and free up time and headspace sit down with the wife and lay it all out on the table, make sure you are taking this on as a unit and listen to her worries and issues too. unless there has been comments or meetings about your work, i wouldn't worry about letting anyone down, just focus on doing your best. clearing some of the above items will likely see an improvement anyway switch GP's there is no rule you have to all go to the same one, and it does make sense for you to go to a different one because this one isn't working for YOU get away from the booze now, just dont drink at all, before its too late good luck
I might just do a Mind map or something to help compartmentilze a little. It’s been such a rough day that I broke down on the phone while my wife was at work so she ended up asking for part-time at her work or she’s quitting today. They seemed to have agreed to her going part-time so she can manage kids pickup and afternoons.
Everything at work always feels due yesterday, but end of the day you have to remember that you are only one person and can only do soo much in a day. I’m running my team, and I feel like I have zero time for anything that needs to be done. I’m doing my best to leave work at work and not worry about work once I leave work as it does you no good to worry about work outside of work. Drop the alcohol as it will be making you feel worse in your situation. Focus on what you can do at work, and only that. You aren’t letting anyone down at work. There’s days where I get 4-5 different people that this job is priority number 1, well I can’t do them all at once and I can only get one done at a time meaning the others get left behind and they get annoyed by that. But end of the day one of those tasks is a more important than the others so that’s the one I do first, the others can wait or do it themselves if they are pissed off enough that I’m not doing their task first as while it’s priority one for them, it’s not actually priority one for me.
> There’s days where I get 4-5 different people that this job is priority number 1 I see that all the time now as well. Was it always like this? Or did people somehow lose the ability to prioritize.
Different teams wanting different things done for their jobs, which all have different milestones. More of a lack of communication and planning tbh. As a lot of it can be done sooner than they need it to be done. Which is how you end up with 4-5 people saying that what they want done is priority number one(for them), but as you can’t do all of them at once, you got to pick and choose as to which is actually priority number one for the company.
I've been in this position before. If there's no improvement, one thing I tried was to pull all those people into one meeting and say 'you all have priority 1 items, but I can't do them all at the same time. So, you need to agree amongst yourself what the priority list is and I'll work to that. If you need to change the priority of your item, it's YOUR responsibility to get agreement from all the impacted parties to make that change to my list, before I will make a change to my list'. Apparently it was good to give them context instead of saying 'I'm too busy' and it made them responsible for the workload they were shuffling to me. But, I'm just a lowly BA and not a decision maker, so I was able to play into that lol
when the country as a whole is having a bad time financially, jobs get condensed, suddenly the receptionist is customer service, admin, accountant and partime packer. So now everyone is overflowing and pushing work on each other. It wasn't always like this but we have had a few too many "once in a life time" financial crises that have really put the squeeze on
What I’m finding is that being in this mindset that I am in, I end up being even more unproductive because my mind is all over the place due to other things and the cycle worsens. I end up procrastinating on shit. IM mid management and have esrned enough trust among my peers that I get away with unproductive time but it makes me feel shit.
If you're anything like us, having a kid start school will likely mean a series of coughs and sniffles as they are introduced to a new soup of children-diseases. Multiple days off school will be required, and then you'll inevitably catch the same diseases. When my oldest started kindy and then school, I was sick for months on end, which wasn't great for my physical OR mental health. So keep up with the vitamin c, exercise, handwashing etc and hopefully you will avoid the worst of it.
Have had both kids in kindy so I know what you mean. Does it get worse with school?
I found kindy worse than school - but the first few years at school were pretty bad as well. Took the first couple of years to stop being a regular occurrence.
Does your company offer an Employment Assistance Program (EAP)? Highly recommend it if they do, it takes a lot of guts to ask for help, speaking to a counsellor could do a lot of good 😊
Yes I’ve used them in past but found them to be average at best, but might try again.
That’s understandable, sometimes you don’t “click” with the counsellor or there are other reasons. I really hope you find what’s best for you OP.
You're having a glass of whiskey at 10 in the morning? Getting your drinking sorted would be the first step.
I agree. I usually only have 2-3 a week drinks usually on the weekend and often on Sunday night due to Monday anxiety. But today was a bad day and the fact that I was drinking at 9:30 prompted this post.
There’s a theme popping out in the advice in the comments so far and that is to consider dropping/pausing the study. Your replies to this appear to be along the lines of “but I’ve already paid for it”. Taking the study off your list of current “to-do’s” is a very actionable step that you are discounting. Look at it this way: you will pay much more than $3k, if your life and family dissolves around you. Speaking from experience.
hey man, i've been in the same boat ride as you and still going through it. high work stress, two kids drop off and pick ups, both having to work to settle the bills, studying at night, mrs wanting seperate talk times, no one really around to talk and discuss these or have shit talk about shitty life etc etc. wasnt suicidal but my brain was touching up on thinking whether ending it would have been a simple choice. anyways, I ended up weighing things. e.g. is this really worth the stress? if i do this and if i miss out on important kids event, is it worth it? Will this person at work that i am doing work for, will he/she come to my funeral and look after my family if i pass away? - reality was that non of these work people would have looked after me nor my family if i died or in desperate times so i had to find something less stressful but flexible at the cost of $$. we did have to make significant cuts to spending but lot better than stressing all the time and feeling bad when i had to leave home early to pick up kids etc to upper management etc etc. yes i will probably never be able to pay off mortage and never afford fancy cars or holiday to Europe but just not having constant pressure and stress, i will live longer bit happier. cheer up man so i can cheer myself up
Thanks. I’ve definitely realised I’ve got too much on right now but feel I’ve already committed in many ways so I guess it’s a lesson for future once I get through this phase.
> I feel I’m letting my bosses and my team down I have bipolar disorder. Literally every single fucking time I have thought this and had the courage to actually *talk* about it with my boss, it has turned out that it was just the depression brain talking. And that sometimes my mountains were constructed from such little molehills that it took a while for my boss to even figure out which trifling little incident was the massive catastrophe that I was trying to apologise for. And these talks have usually resulted in some clarification around expectations and priorities - turns out good bosses don't expect or want their employees to be constantly pushing themselves to the brink of burnout. You've got a lot going on and it sounds like there's little to no time for you to do the things you need to do to keep yourself sane. I know it's really hard with young kids but here are a few things that come to mind for me. I'd highly recommended talking to a shrink for more personalised recommendations - when I need them I get my GP to refer me to the brief intervention service which gets me 5-6 free visits. * You've talked about your wife potentially quitting her job. This means she could to take a lot of the parenting and housework/life admin load off you. And if you don't think carefully about your priorities, it means you're going to fill that time with work and study, and spend very little time actually being a parent. I know men who do prefer this dynamic of being the breadwinner and leaving the kids to the missus. I also know men who have fallen into by accident and are miserable because they hardly ever get to see the kids and feel like they're missing out on hands-on dad time. What balance between work and parenting do you want? * Is there a way that you and your wife could both reduce your hours? When I was a preschooler both of my parents worked 4 days a week. They were very lucky that they could make that work financially of course, but I think it was great for them to each have a day where they could drop me off at kindy, take a few hours to rest, and then spend a chilled-out afternoon with the kids. * Do you have much annual leave accrued? Could you take say one day a week until the end of the semester (I'm guessing that's only \~4 weeks away now?) so that you have dedicated time to study, and then that doesn't bleed into the rest of your life as much? Or even if you don't have much leave, would your boss agree to your taking a few days leave without pay? And then once the semester is over you can reassess how much workload you can actually take on next semester.
Pause your studies bro
I think I will for next semester, already paid for this semester 3k
Can you go to a different GP at the same practice? If you outline things as you have here, including that you’re drinking to help deal with it, they will understand that you’re needing assistance. How much leave do you have? Drop both papers, take a month off, see a psychologist. Break the cycle before it is all entrenched and too hard to come back from.
I have contacted my work EAP this evening and will lay it out for them including the drinking. if that doesn’t work then I will go to my doctor.
Does your employer have access to an EPA counselor as one of the employee benefits? If so, that's something you can discretely make use of.
Ive connected them this evening
It doesnt matter what struggles you have, you have struggles friend. I don't know if it's still available but if you are struggling some medical practices offer "Brief Intervention Counseling". It is really helpful to talk to someone who understands how very human we are.
Does your GP have a health improvement practitioner? Does the university you are doing papers with have student support services you can talk to? If you can survive on one income do you have the money in your budget to take some of the stress off the school pick ups and drop offs and look into hiring a caregiver who can help with that to take some of the stress off. I'm sorry to hear you are having a rough time. Also once the sick child is better, tall to one or two of your single friends and see if they'd like to take the day off and go on an adventure or have a catch up.
I feel your pain and feel like I could have written this myself. We’re family with 3 kids, 1 school, 1 preschool and a 1 yr old. Financially ok, in our own home, studying full time and husband working full time. My health is suffering like you, some from the busyness of life and an underlying condition. I constantly feel pulled in all directions and being a perfectionist, it’s hard to settle for anything less than the standard I’ve set. So we try focus on one day at a time in terms of what needs to be done, getting more nappies or a doctors visit etc and count that as a victory. Reframing some of the ‘small’ things you do during the day as achievements or ticking it off the list has helped me. Because really it is an achievement when you have so much on your plate. We’ve also hired 2 students to help us, as we have minimal family help too. One comes to do the garden for 4 hours once a fortnight. The other is helping with pickup/drop off on 2 trickier days for our school child. It’s a bit more admin sure but easier than me spending 4 hours in the garden when I’m already tired. Another mum I study with has their hired student helper do some meal prep and cleaning for them. Maybe that could be an option? Or a student to babysit the kids an evening or weekend. Even if you and your wife just sit in the garden for a cup of tea together and decompress. Not being needed by your kids, not being touched and not needing to do the next task.
Thank you, where did you hire the students to help you? We’re not that well entrenched in our community so don’t even know where to ask..
We hired them through student job search.
If your GP clinic has a Health Improvement Practioner you can make an appointment via the receptionist. You don’t have to go through the GP.
My wife has gone down to 4days per wk and I've dropped any study plans. Im looking at dropping a day a week too. In hindsight the extra time with kids is far more valuable in these formative years if you can afford it. In most cases the extramural study is just a nice to have I reckon.
I honestly don't know how parents of young children survive with both parents working full time. And I don't think that's the way it is supposed to be and I think our whole community suffers for it being a necessity these days. Raising small children is a job in itself.
I recommend trying the free trial for an app called Reveri. It’s self hypnosis which sounds wacky but it was established by a reputable Stanford psychiatrist. It’s like meditation but way easier because you don’t have to focus very hard. They have stress exercises which really help compartmentalise different things you have going on. Then when you’re not overwhelmed it’s waaay easier to tackle things one by one and your pile gets smaller. Also this isn’t at all meant in a judgy way, but I would recommend putting down the whisky. I like a drink but even small amounts of alcohol can affect your sleep and cognitive function, which makes it harder to handle all the stuff you have going on.