Elusive Balance

What’s life, if not a huge pile of things on the To Do list?
I love to accomplish things and be productive but after sleeping most of yesterday to recover from meeting the deadline on my big PHP-Nuke project, I took a look at today’s To Do list and wondered “Why? Why am I doing all this crap that stresses me out? I don’t need to work. Tod pays the rent and feeds us.”
On a typical day, I am at the computer by 7 am and keep going until I fall alseep at night. I juggle eating, errands and housework in with that, of course, but a 10-12 hour workday is pretty typical. If I’m not doing that, I feel like I’m slacking.
On top of that, the fact that a large amount of my “work” is non-paid projects I’ve initiated (like Hello Tokyo and the silliness at zousan.com) really blurs the boundaries between work and play so I just call it all work. The Zous are demanding bosses.
My trouble seems to be that I don’t see a happy middle ground between working too much and not working at all. Black/white. All/nothing. Either I work so hard I exhaust myself and have to spend a full day sleeping or else I’d better get a membership at the local ladies-who-lunch club.
Help me with some suggestions. What do you do to balance your work and the rest of your life?

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Mediatinker, Kristen McQuillin, is an American-born resident of Japan since 1998. This blog chronicles her life, projects, thoughts, and small adventures.