Wine and Design

How many times have you heard someone say “Oh, I just sat working last night with a glass of wine in hand”.   Not that many times right?  Or maybe indeed?  For me, this is not the norm.  Something about fuelling your delving mind with alcohol while trying to solve some complex problem or more emphatically, trying to come up with a research design doesn’t make sense to me.  Some say it allows the creative juices to get flowing, the nerves to calm and your mind to focus on the work at hand.  Doesn’t alcohol, well, make you drunk?!

Anyway, so I’ve decided to give this “working with a glass of wine in hand” a try.  Let me paint the before picture.  Working a 10 hour day is quite the norm when you are a consultant.  As my consulting-house director puts it, consultants are always one step ahead of the pack.  That’s what we do and to be honest, that’s why the rates are so high.  We will never be a standard 8 to 5 job.  So, having said that, the before picture starts with me having finished a 10 hour working day with a smidge of a coffee/cup-a-soup break in between.  I’ve recently also started juicing and as some of you might know, this takes up a little bit of time to actually get all your fruits and veggies sorted, cleaned and then put through the juicing machine.  And of course the cleaning up after is not always that quick especially when you have to deal with demonic spinach acting out scenes from The Exorcist (but more on that another time).   

At last I get to sit down with juice in hand, ready to get going with the research design.  Troll troll….that was the way I thought my phone rang (and what I thought of the person calling) just when I was about to settle into the design.  A dear friend, who needed to vent.  Bless his soul.  I couldn't say no to a friend in need.

Lo and behold, 30 minutes later, juice all done, phonecall ended.  I get into the research design.  But it’s draaaaggggiiiinnnnnggggg.  And I can’t focus.  And I’m stressing because I can’t focus.  And and and.  I decide to crack open a bottle of great red wine I recently got from a friend. 

Well, it sure does get the creative juices flowing – here I am writing up a blog entry all about it! Procrastinating?  Maybe.  Getting my mind off surfing the internet?  For sure.  Refocusing myself onto my research design?  Possibly…I am calmer indeed.

Here’s to not waking up tomorrow morning with the word QWERTY engraved on my cheek.

Till next time

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