How to keep sane in Michaelmas Term

Maria Giovanna In Other Words seemed to have lost words for a long time. Apologies to all my faithful readers: it's been an interesting and challenging Summer, which can be summarised in the famous expression: "life is what happens when you are making other plans". More explanations on this will follow in a post where I explain why I dropped both Cam23 and cpd23; for the time being, I just wanted to break my psychological blogging block and write a little post dedicated to all my colleagues in academic libraries, and especially in Cambridge, where our busiest term (the dreaded "Michaelmas") is just beginning.

I didn't feel like going to work today: Michaelmas is always a terrible time and we all end up in December being awfully stressed out. While sadly chewing my biscuits this morning, I thought about past Michaelmases and came up with a list of what to do to keep sane at this time of the year, or at least try. So here it is, for your pleasure:

• Remember that it doesn't last forever.  It's 8 weeks. It passed before, and it will pass again. We will survive.
• Don't expect everything in the office (or library) to be perfect. With so many people visiting, something is bound to go wrong. This is the time when we can show our flexibility and ability to cope with unexpected issues. And of course, we will be able to cope!
• You are nervous: your colleagues are too. Increase the number of smiles you give to people in your work enviroment, even if you don't feel like smiling. It will help a lot.
• If some colleagues annoy you, stick with those you work best with. Try to be surrounded by a nice group of enthusiastic people, as much as you can.
• Breathe. Get a coffee break. Get a proper lunch. Try to leave on time.
• In your lunchbreak or at the end of the day, send a personal email to somebody outside your workplace. It helps you remember that there are other people out there who don't even know what Michaelmas is.
• Plan to have lunch with a friend sometimes. It gets you out of the office and switches your brain off for a bit. If you go with a colleague, make a pact and do not talk about work or other colleagues! You surely have an out-of-work life to share.
• At the end of the day, think about what went well and not just about what went wrong.
• Plan a couple of days off. We are entitled to get a maximum of three consecutive days of leave at this time of the year: this means that we CAN take them. For example, I have my birthday at the end of October and I always take the day off.
• Most important of all: plan something nice for the weekend. Resist the temptation to collapse on your sofa. Arrange a dinner, go to the cinema, visit a new place, bake a cake, cook something new, undertake a new crocheting project, plan a long skype call with a friend who lives abroad: whatever comes to your mind that will allow you to forget about work and re-charge your batteries.

Any other tips to add to the list? Have a lovely Michaelmas term you all, whenever it falls in your workplace!