A stride

Today I continued my work, finishing a number of a programming jobs and printing two new parts (after a few prototypes throughout the week).  Triumphantly, I'll be bold enough to declare I've found a stride at school, but of course this comes at the end of the week.  And here's the challenge I've been faced with numerous times over the course of my PhD... continue my work into the weekend, potentially burning myself out for the coming week -or- take a weekend to rest and start fresh on Monday.  Neither is a good decision; I can say this with plenty of experience of both scenarios.  Frankly I don't know which choice is the 'right' one, but I will admit this is not an uncommon decision for a postgraduate student.  At the end of the day, it's best to look at the coming weeks/months to see if there's an urgency to your work or if it's best to pace yourself for the days ahead.  One of the most difficult tasks over the past three years has been to reign myself in, limiting the length of my workday or work week, but I've come to realise that while there's a certain short term gain to long work hours, these can wear one down in the long run; a most unwelcome occurrence during a PhD.