Disability Narratives
Impact on working: Productivity, work-life balance, role, and flexible working
Video clip: Working part-time helped Susannah manage her migraines, but she had to be careful not to let work creep in to her days off.
And I do Monday to Thursday. So the suggestion that I had from occupational health was to, was to go to eighty percent. And then they kind of basically said "See what works for you." And there was the option of, of kind of shorter days. Or, or like a more traditional part time where I did four days a week. And I found that four days a week worked a lot better for me, because it allowed me to have kind of a recovery day. Which, particularly if I'd had a migraine during the week, or if I'd had one at the weekend, it just gave me a day that wasn't a weekend day. So it wasn't kind of a day on which I might have social things planned. And wasn't a work day. And I could just kind of crash and recover. And I found that really helpful. And it - you know – it, I could kind of plan recovery time. Which, an extra bit of time each day didn't really give me. And then I just felt it was easier to have it as a Friday.
I think the other thing is, I have to be quite careful about kind of creep. And it's very tempting to think oh, you know, this project that I'd like to finish, I could - I could just do it on a Friday, I could, I could just finish off that paper. Or I could just do that. You know? This, you know this, this review that needs doing, I could just - I could just read it on a Friday. Or, you know, this grant application that needs reading, I could just read it on a Friday, couldn't it, couldn’t I. And it's really easy for everything to just - you know – those, you know those little extra bits you could, for them to very, very slowly creep into that extra bit of time. And then every now and then you need to remind yourself why, why that Friday is that - you know - why that part time is there. And that actually, it's there for a reason. And that you don't want work to creep into it too much, because then you'll go back to where you were. And that's not helpful for anybody [laugh].