Workaholics are addicted to the solace they find in extreme fatigue; it’s like the high that a marathon runner might get in her last mile. I can be utterly depleted yet energized by that depletion. There’s a masochistic pride to overworking. How heavy a workload can I truly handle? How many plates can I keep in the air? When I get to the end of a particularly overloaded day, my voice hoarse from teaching, my mind buzzing from far too many e-mails, questions, and deadlines, I vow never to let that happen again, knowing full well that, as soon as I’ve achieved a new level of exhaustion, my id will push me to try to exceed it.

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1. The trick to balancing five jobs is to never, ever procrastinate. What you can do right now, you have to do now. When a new request files in, you address it immediately, like a burst pipe. Question from a student? Reply within five minutes. Question from your boss? Reply within two minutes. Grading papers? Start the moment they’re turned in. Other miscellaneous stuff? Squeeze it in whenever you can, but finish it by the end of the day. I’ve taken only a dozen or so yoga classes in my lifetime and, though I like the general process of stretching and flow, I feel a debilitating stress at the end of class, when I am expected to lie there for ten minutes, breathing, and thinking about nothing. I think about how many e-mails I could have sent in that time.

– Notes on Work: There’s a masochistic pride to overworking. How heavy a workload can I truly handle? How many plates can I keep in the air?