This past year I didn’t so much make a resolution as make a choice that I was not going to spend so much time at work. In 2012, which was my first year working full time at CMP I never took any vacation time. I was worried that if I used any of it I wouldn’t have enough time saved up for my actual vacation in August or at Christmas when it’s mandatory that you take time off. I would sit in my office, staring at the computer, doing absolutely nothing. I’d wish that I could go home and work on our Little House, or cook some meals, anything to be productive. Instead I miserably sat at my desk feeling forced to work even when there was nothing going on.

This year James maxed out on his vacation and had to donate some to me in order to not lose it. For some reason this gave me the security to feel like I could take a few days off. I don’t know why I needed his vacation time to feel like it was ok to leave work; I could have easily taken it during my first year as well. But it took some time to realize feeling miserable at work was worse than getting a paycheck with no overtime.

This year I also kept track of how many hours I worked. I kept an extra tab in our financial budget sheet to see how many hours I took off, overtime, travel days, etc. Having all this information in an excel sheet completes an OCD part of me. The sheet started as a way to track our finances to pay off my student loan, but now it’s just a helpful guide to know how much we paid for items, or if we’re getting crazy buying food out or something. But this year, I can tell exactly how much time I put into CMP.

When we got to December and finally looked at the total I was really surprised, since I had made this conscious decision at the beginning of the year to work less overtime and I didn’t even take a single vacation day until June. Even then, I took 1 day off.  Here’s what the breakdown looked like:

Vacation (or sick time): 92 total hours this year (54 of them were for Sturgis, and 24 of them were mandatory for Christmas) That means I used 14 hours during the year for my sanity. Even if I add in the Christmas and trip to South Dakota, that breaks down to taking .95 of a day each month. I didn’t even take a whole day off!

I also worked 32 hours of overtime on average per month (or an extra 4 days each month).

On average I traveled for work 5 days a month.

Even with weekends I only got off 7 days a month on average. There were 100 weekend days in 2013, and say 10 paid holidays. I only got 91 days off in 2013. That’s counting a week and a half vacation I took in August and a mandatory 8 days in December for Christmas. That’s because I worked 29 weekends this year.

I’m not complaining. I’m interested by something I kept track of for an entire year. Most people go to work everyday they’re scheduled, never get vacation… and I get that. My dad, who works for himself, works weekends, holidays and over 8 hours everyday. He does manual labor to earn a living, and I know is working harder than I am. I’m sure if we were to compare notes, he spends more time working than I do. Again, I’m not complaining. I simply, for my sanity, needed to stop feeling guilted into being at work when I wasn’t happy being there. And since I am allowed vacation time each year, I tried to use more of it up, and have a happier 2013.

My budget sheet is completed for the year; every excel block is filled in with a number. My obsessive need to track a part of my life is fulfilled by filling in the data every week. I don’t know whether I feel more excited to see 2013 be completed or start a fresh sheet with 2014.