9-5 WORK DAYS | finding balance is hard, busy work days, self care & more!

The essentials. Doesn't mean that you're doing everything at once. I'm so nervous. Okay. What's up friends? Welcome back to another vlog. If you're new here, my name is Selena. I'm an economist and content creator in the Washington DC area. I create a bunch of lifestyle, productivity, and wellness journey vlogs. So if you're into that sort of thing and if you haven't already, consider subscribing. But with all that said, it's currently 1 p.m. I haven't taken my lunch and I have a meeting around 2 p.m. And this is going to be my first time attending this meeting. It's the meeting that I referenced in my last vlog. It's going to be like a policy council meeting. And all of the attendees are supervisors, branch chiefs, and they have like discussions about really important topics and policies and all of that. And I'm going to be taking the notes. And I'm just really anxious. I don't know why. But I'm taking a little coffee break. Decided to check in with you all. But I'm going to get back to work now and prepare for the meeting. And I will check in with you all after. I have a walk planned today with my friend who's also sort of my neighbor. She lives like a couple blocks from my apartment in another apartment building. And we're going to go for a walk around 3 p.m. And I'm really excited for that. So something to look forward to to unwind after taking those notes and attending my first meeting. I'm so, so anxious. But it's going to be fun. So I just prepared my document that I'm going to be taking the notes. Oh my gosh, I can't even talk. I'm so nervous. So as I said, today is the first day that I'm going to be taking notes at this policy meeting. It's a monthly meeting. So I will be taking over for the next year. And I guess I'm just so nervous because it's a bunch of like higher ups in the agency talking about important policy issues moving forward. And I guess I'm just so nervous that I might mess up or whatever. Like they don't expect me to be perfect. I already know. But I don't know. I'm just like kind of hard on myself. Especially since it's a new project, a new task for me. And yeah, I just I want to do a good job. So I prepared the document where I'm going to be taking notes. And now I just like feel butterflies in my stomach. And I have to take the notes in half an hour. So wish me luck. I know I'm going to do fine. Like I'm sure I'll do fine. But I just can't help but be nervous. Is that weird? I'm literally just taking notes. Like I shouldn't be nervous. But yeah, just a little update. I will hopefully have a more positive update on the outcome after the meeting. But we'll see. Wish me luck. When you join a meeting too early. Calm down, Selena. And I just left. So I hope that that wasn't like super obvious. So it's like one big meeting from 1.30 to 3. But from 1.30 to 2, it's like another group that meets. That's not necessarily... Oh my god, I almost said where I work. That's not necessarily like my agency. But they work with our agency. So they meet beforehand. And then my agency joins at 2 p.m. And I joined at 1.55 and I was like hearing some things. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna leave. Because I don't... I'm not 100% sure if I'm supposed to be hearing that. I'm stressed. But it's fine. I got two minutes. I'm probably gonna join the meeting at literally 1.59 to be safe. Because I also don't want to be late to the meeting, you know. Oh gosh, okay. You know, just anxiety kicking in. But it's fine. I'm gonna get through this. It's gonna be great. Okay, so the meeting just ended. And per usual, I had all this anxiety for, you know, no good reason. Everything turned out fine. I obviously know how to take notes. I just had a moment of anxiety and nerves getting to me because it was my first time. And I think that's perfectly normal. And that's why I share these things with you all. Because I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets like nerves or anxiety about things like this in the office. So I feel like it might be relatable to some of you all. But I'm feeling much better. I feel like once the meeting started, I just kind of got in my zone with typing. And the anxiety was just gone immediately. So thank God for that. Now I just have to clean up the notes and send them out to my supervisor's supervisor. He's like the director. So I'm gonna do that. And then I'm gonna meet up with my friend to go on our walk. The meeting actually ended a little bit early. It's 2.40 right now. So that's good. Which means that I can meet her at 3 to take my lunch break and go for a walk. And it's much needed right now. So I'm gonna finish this and check in with you all later. I just sent the meeting notes and it's 3.17. So I'm gonna take my lunch now. I need to text... Okay, Siri. I was not talking to you. So I'm gonna text my friend to meet up with her. Hopefully she's still able to meet so we can go for a walk together. But I'm gonna eat a slice of leftover pizza until she responds because I'm so hungry. Well, good thing I checked my phone before grabbing the pizza that I was about to eat because my friend said she's actually hungry. So we're gonna get sweet greens. And that sounds really good to me. So I'm excited. And now I gotta put on my shoes and head out. So I'll see y'all after. I just made it back. It was such a good time to see my friend. And to get that walk-in. And have a salad and a good chat. So now I'm gonna sign back into work. And finish up some work that I have for some data review that I have to do for some of my states before more data comes in tomorrow. So I'll check in with you all once I sign out. It is currently almost 6 p.m. And I just signed out of work a little bit ago. So I'm just gonna chill. I was gonna try to do a workout today. But I'm feeling pretty drained because I kind of had a long workday. And I did at least go for like a 30 minute walk today. So I'm feeling pretty good. I think that's enough movement for today at least. I think I might like clean up the kitchen and just do some like household chores and all of that. My workday is over thankfully. So one thing that I wanted to focus on this week and also in coming weeks is just finding balance. That's something that I talked about with my therapist this week at my session. And it's something that we talk about pretty much every single week is how to find balance for myself. For example, how do I incorporate self-care into my everyday routine especially during my busy seasons at work which is what just started for me. How do I incorporate my love for YouTube while also maintaining my sanity and my mental health and my physical health as well. And for me that meant that I had to reduce my upload schedule from three uploads to two uploads per week just to make sure that I have that little bit of extra time to hopefully invest in myself in self-care and in movement and hopefully in nourishing my body more as well. But honestly I have struggled with balance pretty much my entire life. I think a lot of you can probably relate to that. Finding balance is like easier said than done especially because there's no manual to it. There's like no equation that we can just follow. I truly don't know if there's such a thing as like balance. It's more so like a juggling act it feels like. Like sometimes you're just more focused on one thing than another and then you kind of switch it up. And that's what I'm really starting to learn about what it means to balance. It doesn't mean that you're doing everything at once. That might be what balance looks like for some people but that's not what it looks like for me and that's kind of the whole thing about finding balance. Like everyone has to have their own journey for that and figure out what works for them and I'm still trying to figure that out. But what I do know is living with depression it's just not realistic for me to try to find balance in doing everything at once. I definitely have to more so prioritize what things need to be at the top of my list and I think that's the really tricky thing about finding balance with work and life. We need to actually be honest with ourselves and put aside our desires for achievement and success for a second and be honest with ourselves about where we are and how we feel and whether or not we're truly taking care of our bodies and the people around us to the best of our abilities because if something in our life is taking up so much space that you know we're not getting any sleep we're neglecting like day-to-day self-care then I think it's times like that where you just have to re-evaluate where you're spending your time and re-prioritize. It's something that we all kind of have to juggle and learn in adulthood and something that I think we can all relate to. But anyway that's today's after work chat. Sorry for the hair. I honestly just kind of put it in a messy bun and it's all over the place. But yeah I hope that you enjoyed this little chat about balance. Oh my gosh. I look so close to my face right now. Anyway so now I'm just officially going to go watch some anime because I've honestly been really loving watching anime. I just finished season one of Attack on Titans. I finished season one of Demon Slayer and now I'm going to try to find a platform where I can watch season two of Attack on Titans because I absolutely love it. And thank you all so much for giving me your anime suggestions on my last video but also on my Instagram stories because I asked you all for that yesterday. But I'm going to go relax and enjoy that until I finally get ready for bed. So I will see you all tomorrow for another work day. It's currently 2pm and my back is killing me honestly and I'm just feeling pretty tired probably from staring at my computer screen and all of that. So I'm going to go ahead and take my lunch right now. I wanted to have a quick little chat or update about finding balance. Finding balance is honestly something that I struggle with. I think a lot of us can probably agree that finding balance is hard. It would be a lie for me to say that it comes easy to me or that I have it figured out whatsoever. It's definitely something that I still struggle with. Something that I have to work towards and one way that I'm trying to find balance in this busy season at work is to actually take breaks from my work day. I remember my last busy season. If you're not new here and you've seen my busy work days and busy work week vlogs then you already know that there were several days where I was working tons of overtime, not taking lunches in order to try to get out of work at a normal time. But I never got out at a reasonable time. Like 80% of the time I would still be working at 8 or 9pm in order to try to meet deadlines and I honestly think that that was just very detrimental to my mental health and I had to be. And so this busy season I have to be very self-aware and very intentional to make myself take breaks and even just stepping away from my desk like not sitting at my desk because last quarter I would take breaks like little coffee breaks but I would still be sitting at my desk and I think I just need to give myself that mental break and separation from my desk and looking at my computer screen and sitting at the same chair where I do my work. Like I think a big part of finding balance is changing your environments. It's hard. Like there's always going to be something that we can improve on or something you know that we can work towards and I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. So anyway that's gonna be it my little lunchtime chat. I am now gonna head to my couch and relax. I just don't want to be in my bedroom anymore because this is where I've been working for the past well for the entire day pretty much. So I'm gonna go I think I'm gonna watch some Attack on Titans. I am watching it on Hulu. I'm on season two now. Very excited about it. David doesn't enjoy it as much as I do so I'm just gonna watch it without him and enjoy the rest of my lunch to myself and then get back to work. So I will see you all when I get off. It's 6 10 p.m. It's 6 10 p.m. and I just signed out of work. I actually still have quite a bit of work to do but I decided instead of working until like 10 p.m. which is a ridiculous time, I am not gonna like force myself to just push through. Like I did last quarter which definitely burnt me out and left me just like exhausted and hating my life a little bit. I'm going to try to spread out my work into more like productive blocks. So I feel like I did as much as I could today mentally. So I'm actually gonna do some work over the weekend, probably tomorrow, maybe a little bit on Sunday. I would rather do like two hours on Saturday, two hours on Sunday instead of working those four extra hours tonight if that makes sense. I think I've mentioned in other vlogs that during my busy periods, we are allowed to take 24 extra hours of overtime for every pay period in order to meet our deadlines. Like it's not a usual thing for the federal government but because our deadlines are really important and it's a publication that needs to be done, we're given this, what is the word? See my mind, like my brain's not even working right now. I'm trying to think of a word and I can't even think about it. We're encouraged and like low-key kind of expected to take overtime in order to meet or beat our deadlines. But this quarter instead of taking my overtime as a 12-hour day or a 10-hour day where my mind isn't even fully functioning at its best, I'm going to try to spread it out. Anyway, with all of that said, I also received my Amazon Fresh delivery. So I wanted to show you all a quick little grocery haul of everything that I got. So let me unpack this and show you all real quick. The essentials. What the heck? This is tiny. So this is what around $80 worth of groceries looks like when you order from Amazon Fresh. So it doesn't really look like a lot but I just got some essentials plus the wine is honestly what cost the most and I know three seems excessive but I just don't like to be buying a bottle of wine every week or every two weeks. So I rather just stock up. So I got three of my favorite wines. The Josh Cabernet wine. This is one of my favorites. I love Cabernet and then this Stella Rosa is like this black sweet wine but it's not too sweet. It has like a little bit of a cherry flavor. Really really like that. I got more of these. These are my favorite table water crackers. Well one of my favorites. David and I eat these like pretty often with cheese so I got two of them. I also got some Nutella. I haven't had Nutella. I don't even remember the last time. Like it's been months maybe even years since I've had Nutella at home. So I got some of that to have with some English muffins or the sourdough bread that I got today. I got some oats. I honestly thought this was gonna be the big container of oats. It is what it is. I also got some lavanderita corn tortillas. These ones are actually really good. The only thing I don't like about these is how soft they are but that is also kind of what I do like about them. But anyway I got two packs because your girl be eating quesadillas and huevos con queso and all of that or even having some queso fresco rolled up in a warm tortilla is just, it gives me life. And I also got some sharp cheddar for David's sandwiches. He likes to make his lunches here sometimes if he stays the night. I got Mexican cheese to put in my eggs. It's not really Mexican y'all. And then I also got bananas because I've been just snacking on these more often lately. And I also got some La Croix and some eggs because that's a necessity. And then I got some Rice Krispie treats. I've been seeing Taylor Woods eat these as a pre-workout snack and I kind of want to try it. But also I just love Rice Krispie and I never buy them so I ended up getting that. And then I got some honey bunches of oats. It's just one of my favorite cereals and I feel like it's an easy breakfast. Especially right now during my busy season where I just kind of want to wake up and have something ready to go. So good. I just poured myself a glass of wine and this was much needed. I feel like I don't really drink very often but during my bee- my beezy? Oh my gosh get it together. But during my busy seasons I do tend to have like a little glass of wine as a treat at the end of the night. At least that's what I'm going to try to do this quarter. Kind of have a little I guess motivation. Sometimes it'll be wine. Sometimes it might be ordering takeout. This is so so so nice. It's the start of my weekend even though like I said I am gonna work a couple of hours tomorrow. But two hours sounds so much better than not having a Friday night to relax at all. So I'm not too upset about it. But I hope that you enjoyed spending the last couple of days with me just talking about trying to find balance. And please make sure to leave a comment down below. Let me know some ways that you try to incorporate or find balance in your life. Like what parts of your life do you notice are the most difficult to try to find balance? For me it's definitely my health and fitness. Just like my health in general. It's really hard for me to incorporate it into my life right now. I'm noticing that it's like a struggle. I have to pull tooth and nail to get myself to leave my apartment and be physical. So that's something that I really really want to work on. My health in general. Just like making little baby steps towards that. Drinking more water. Going for walks. All of that. So what is one thing for you that you really want to work on incorporating and bringing more into your life in order to get closer to balance? If you enjoyed today's vlog, don't forget to give this video a thumbs up. And make sure to leave a comment down below so we can have our little weekly discussion. And if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe. I post new videos every Sunday and Wednesday at 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. If there's ever any updates to my posting schedule, I'll always update you all on my Instagram stories. So make sure to follow me on Instagram if you haven't already. But with all that said, I'm gonna enjoy my wine. And I will see you all in the next video.