Keeping Sanity M-F/8-5

I work in an industry where I hear sad and/or stressful things all day long. I love my job, but I was warned by friends and family before I went into this field that it might wear on me. So far, so good. I’m going to give a peek into my Monday through Friday sanity maintenance and routines at work.

• Morning shower. I don’t care if I showered at midnight (ha – yeah right, most people know I’m an in bed by 9pm kind of gal), I am waking up and showering again in 6 hours. I can formulate my to do lists in my head, think about what I am going to wear, whatever. Eventually I will be incorporating this terrible place that I loathe into this routine: The gym. But this is for overall health, not a step I put in place for my mental maintenance (though I am sure it will help).

• When I get to work, I use scratch paper and write down everything on my mind that is bothering me. It can be work stuff, it can be home stuff, it can be any sort of brain clutter that’s just kind of taking up space in my head. I write for a few minutes until I can’t think of anything else needing to go on my piece of paper. I take that paper, fold it, and bid it farewell in our secure shred bin. Toodle-oo, bad thoughts clouding up my judgment. I do this before my coffee so that I can enjoy my coffee.

• Coffee. I commit to drink as much water as I do coffee in the morning. There for a while, I was drinking enough coffee to be able to see sound and feel smell. Definitely great for my typing skills – my words per minute had to have been in the triple digits, but pretty hard on the rest of me. Also, my coffee time is my time to wander the halls and say my good mornings to my coworkers.

• Getting the Hell out of the office for just a minute. My awesome bosslady found out that my guilty pleasure is an 11:30am Diet Coke and offered to put it on our office supply list but I let her know that I enjoy going downstairs to the deli in the lobby every day and just getting out for a second to pick up one down there. If the weather is nice, sometimes I’ll step outside just for a second for fresh air to reboot.

• Mid-afternoon meditation. Sometimes it feels good just to breathe. My bossman is now no longer alarmed when I have my head on my desk, with a tissue soaked in stress relief spray, and I am oddly still if he pops his head in. The paralegal next door, however, was ready to call 9-1-1 when she walked by twice and I didn’t move. One of these days, I might open my eyes to her holding a mirror under my nostrils to check if I am breathing.

• Not wearing uncomfortable shoes when there aren’t guests in the office. Every woman in my office has a pair of cute, fuzzy slippers under their desk. Wearing my bitchiest heels that kill my toes is cool and all, but I can assure you that the bathroom door, my fake plants, and my family photos are not judging my footwear.

Oh, and if you suck at remembering to take vitamins daily – stash them in your desk and you might have a chance of remembering when you are looking for a paperclip.

Casual selfie with some of my vitamins.

And today I figured out that this is how much make-up is in my work bag that goes between home and office. 1. I have basically the same 2 colors in 4 textures and 6 brands. 2. I finally committed to leaving some of this in my desk for emergencies instead of needing emergency surgery on my shoulder for wagging around my bag. 3. Having things on deck to prep me for meetings and post-work happenings also helps with my sanity, but not enough to write a paragraph about it.