Week 9: looking at the woods

Hi everyone,

I hope you've all had a good and productive week...

Because of the nature of my research, I often end up spending some time training and working with graduate students or early career researchers, which I like, since I have few of "my own" so to speak.  I really like mentoring/coaching.  A conversation which I end up having a lot is about the need to switch perspectives between the details of the day or sample ahead and the wider project or career - "seeing the wood for the trees".  I've come to see the ability to switch quickly and easily between woods-vision and trees-vision as an important indicator of the likelihood of someone coping with modern academic life - the single-focus scholar working alone for days at a time on one thing is a lovely pipe-dream, and certainly characterises some stages of the PhD, but once you add some combination of teaching multiple classes, administration, multiple projects, grant applications, conferences, students and all the minutiae typical of almost any career-type continuing-contract role in academic life, being able to transition matters.

All of which is preamble to saying, we're half way through this TLQ iteration, and Sunday is 'Half Way Day' (day 183 of the year, exactly half way in a 365 day year (so in this 366 day year it shares the half way honour with Monday, day 184)).  So this week, let's look back at our summer goals and forward to the end of August - what have we achieved?  Do we need to amend our goals?  Have new opportunities or new disruptions come up?  What can we do in the next 8 weeks to make us feel happier about how we used our summer when we look back from September? [Sorry, EE, I know you did yours last week]

Summer goals are at the end of this post, after last week's goals

LAST WEEK'S GOALS
Allan Wilson 

1. Work on CR revisions for 4 hours

2. Exercise at least 3 days (I will be away and out of my routine)

3. Finish two transcriptions.

 
Contingent Cassandra

1. Try to get into summer-term pattern that incorporates both getting necessary work done on computer and not spending any more time than necessary on computer. I'd really like to develop the skill/habit of checking/doing what I need to do/check, then taking a break by getting up and doing something else (household chores, exercise, even reading on a different device. It's all too easy to get stuck in front of the computer when I need to be on the computer regularly. The key is I don't need to be on it constantly).

2. Do each at least 1x: walk, swim, garden, maybe lift weights.

3. Make substantial progress on chaos reduction (mostly in kitchen, also take a load to storage)

4. Finish up computer upgrade, label & put away backup drives.

5. Work reading in morning and/or evening into schedule.

6. Continue reconnecting with friends & family; begin planning two trips and possibly one outing.

7. Finish prep stages of grant project and plan/begin my contribution to main stage.

8. Plan for time off over July 4th weekend.

 
Daisy (in the field)

Dame Eleanor Hull

1. Finish reviewing one chunk with D.

2. Meet with D and W about another chunk and plans for proceeding from here.

3. Review another chunk, or at least half of it, on my own.

4. Enjoy travel/holiday for the rest of the week.

5. Eat proper meals at least twice a day.

 
Earnest English

The big project this upcoming week is gardening.

1. Gardening is the biggie this week -- or there will be nothing to harvest later.

2. Do yoga or tai chi one day this week.

3. Write. Engage in one small Secondary Field Project piece at least every other day (reading or writing is okay).

4. Engage with Spirited stuff most days.

5. Get Workthing done. Bit by bit. Without panic or stress.

6. Take baths to reduce the serious muscle tension in my shoulders.

7. Keep up with Farmstead duties.

8. Identify first herbalism project?

 
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

Start reading the Slow Professor

Unpack

Evaluate summer goals

 
Good Enough Woman

1. 40 pages primary sources.

2. Two articles/chapters.

3. Fix bib entries, and add five more.

4. Procure Slow Professor book.

5. Enjoy family while not feeling guilty about taking some time to work.

 
heu mihi

1. Meditate 5 times--I really want to make this a priority

2. Write up ideas for mentoring exchange for L

3. Review article

4. Finish revisions to VS article? My self-imposed deadline is 7/1, but we'll see.

5. Write 1500 words on ch. 6

6. Read 3 things

 
humming42

1 Read peer articles from Mercury journal

2 Follow up with Mercury editors

3 Read parts 6-8 for Mars

4 Read through Mars conference presentation

5 Add new material to RBP Chapter 2

JaneB (carried over due to Referendum Funk)

1) restore good habits following travel - mindful eating, bed times, exercise at least a couple of times

2) Make measurable progress with Problem Child

3) Do at least 500 words of writing on Special Issue Paper

4) Take at least 2 slots of half an hour to organise notes from Gallimaufrey meeting that I just attended, to free-write about some of the ideas that came up there, and to process materials

5) write a blog post for Gallimaufrey site about the workshop

 

karen (from week 7)

1. Breath. Move like water.
2. Hold the space for people that need it. Include myself in the people that get that extension of kindness and patience.
3. Read one thing that isn't to do with an imminent deadline.
4. 5 minutes of freewriting x 4

KJHaxton

- finish up last week's to-do list

- write conference presentation

- give conference presentation

- add some rows to the new blanket

 
Matilda

1) Set the time to write, and keep it. Amend it to fit to my working schedule better.

2) Think about my problems from my mental aspect. Do what I need to do but have procrastinated so long, too long, because there is no formal deadline, only I have decided to do that. So it is me who have decided and have to. DO.

3) Continue to work on Chapter 2. Write a draft. (following Goodson and others, write first, revise later)

4) 5 minute exercise more than three times a day. Continue.

 
Susan

1. Finish ILL Stuff

2. Do another read through the whole MS. to fit in things that need to be woven in.

3. Cats to vet for their nails

4. Prepare material for personnel case

5. Make final choice of images and write for permissions

6. Keep preparing house for a month away

7. Keep reading for pleasure, even if for a few minutes each night.

8. Three days of exercise

 
Waffles 

1. Tomorrow, need to finish research strategy and send out.

2. Update support analyses

3. Write up religion findings

4. Get all of grant app in decent shape by July 4 to give to mentor (AAACCKKK!!!).

SUMMER GOALS

allan wilson

I don't know what to pick as an overall goal: what comes to mind is something like 'not fall apart', which I think on reflection probably involves

1. stay fit and exercise

2. find a creative outlet for stress, either playing an instrument or handcraft

3. submit 2 more papers.

Contingent Cassandra

here are my goals for the summer, and some comments (especially in light of the fact that I know they're overambitious).

1. Keep up with both individual and managerial/organizational contributions to grant project; do some planning for future stages (mostly identifying possible additional funders).

2. Self-care, including increased exercise (walking; swimming; weight-lifting; gardening, but not at the expense of the other three); brain retraining/rejuvenation via breaks from the internet and time spent on long-form reading (recreational and/or professional); improved diet (more home-prepared food, more fruits and vegetables); good sleep routines.

3. Continue getting financial affairs in order, planning for next 15-20 years and beyond (with as much flexibility/room for accommodating the general uncertainties of life and the specific uncertainties of contingent academic positions as possible).

4. Stay connected/reconnect with family and close friends, especially the elderly and those recently affected by death and other upheavals. This will probably involve at least one week-long and several weekend trips, as well as regular long-distance communication.

5. Make progress on household projects, especially creating additional built-in storage in apartment.

6. Make progress on organizing/sorting/culling items in offsite storage and preparing for move (to cheaper interim storage or directly to 2nd home/investment property in lower-cost-of-living area). #s5 and 6 are somewhat interconnected, and I’m realistically probably going to make anything resembling visible progress on only one of them; I suspect it should be #5, if only because visible progress in the apartment is more visible, and so has a greater effect on my morale.

7. Reconnect in some way with research/writing in original field (realistically, this is unlikely to go further than re-reading a draft or two to see where things stand, and identifying/doing some secondary reading, but I’d like to do at least that).

8. At some point, I need to figure out how to balance original field research/writing with teaching field research/writing (including activities in #1), all in the context of a 4/4 writing-intensive load with no built-in sabbaticals. That probably points to the value of finding a way to afford summers off, or at least less-frequent summer teaching (see #s 3 and 6). This is a well-beyond-the-summer TLQ/professional goal to which some of the above contribute (and which needs to be kept in mind while making decisions about how to spend time and money).

Realistically, if I do a reasonably good job of #s1 and 4, make some progress on #s2 (especially exercise), 3, and 5, and do even a bit of #7, I’ll consider the summer a success. 

Daisy

For travel this summer I have: 6 weeks of field work (in two shifts), three major lab trips (about 1 week each) and a "vacation" week (aka do all childcare and house stuff just like normal but in a different location with none of the usual conveniences...)

TLQ goals:

1) Redo a hideous Revise/Resubmit paper left over from the winter term (the paper was hideous, the review equally and deservedly so...)

2) Do three major analytical projects and write a report for each

3) Learn fancy new-to-me analytical and modelling software

4) Exercise!!!!

5) Camp in at least three new areas with child, and do a few trips to old favourites

6) Write paper for new field area

Dame Eleanor Hull

By the end of August, I hope to have sold a house and moved. If the house doesn't sell, then we will get to unpack a lot of boxes, arrange for some repairs and new appliances, and stay put another year. I dread moving but I think I dread the continuing battle with this house (and garden, and commute) more.

On the work front, I have the following tasks:

1. an R&R to deal with (needs more reading)(MMP-3, if you recall my old nomenclature).

2. complete revision of another article that has now been twice rejected (MMP-1).

3. conference paper in August, based on material for which there isn't really room in (2).

4. write syllabuses for fall classes by early August, because I'll be away at the conference when they should be turned in. This involves changing both a 3-day course and a 1-day course to 2-day schedules.

5. That book manuscript . . . It is at least now a book-length manuscript instead of an idea, but it is a hot and cold running mess. In the interest of finishing the other things, I think I'm probably putting it on hold for the summer.

6. translation: I will spend a week in the UK with the rest of the translation team, in June, and I need to see if I can finish my share of the translation by then. Or at least finish polishing a roughly finished chunk and complete and polish the chunk I'm currently translating. Then there will be one more chunk to do later . . . sometime.

Earnest English

Summer Goals (revised in week 8)

1. Work on Secondary Field Project, achieving 8R and 8y by end of session, and getting a fair amount of related reading done.

2. Talk to NonAcademicFriend about non-academic work.

3. Gardening!

4. Engage with some relevant scholarship as desirable.

5. Get FallClassesandPlan together.

6. Have a wonderful family summer with lots of homeschooling, reading with Spirited, and field trips! Make Spirited feel as if he's the center of my world!

7. Get back into yoga or tai chi or something!

8. Do Little Project plans.

9. Learn about herbalism.

10. Read nonscholarly books and have fun!

11. Yeah yeah, do the workthings I promised to do but don't let them take over.

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

Have office in new house set up and functioning

Finish required class (May 27th)

Have Pierpont article roughed out in first draft

Have footnotes done for Prudence book

Take some time to figure out my fiction writing

Walk/swim to enjoy the summer weather

Good Enough Woman

My session goals are not terribly complicated:

1) Finish the PhD thesis (all but minor editing, such as proofreading and changing punctuation and spelling from American to British--these things can be done in September).

2) Try not to neglect the family all of the time.

3) Try not to feel to guilty when I do neglect the family.

4) Get a little bit of exercise (let's say some kind of movement at least 3x per week).

5) Advocate for my needs/rights with my PhD university if need be.

heu mihi

my overly ambitious summer project list:

1) Book review 1

2) Book review 2

3) Write chapter 6

4) Revise and add M to chapter 4

5) Research trip in late May! Then add research to ch. 3

6) Conference paper proposal (due 6/15)

humming42

1 Finish book manuscript (also known as RBP, revised book project, named by Dame Eleanor many moons ago)

2 Mercury essay draft due mid-July

3 Mars essay due end of July

4 Submit Venus abstract at the beginning of August

5 Try to work yoga into life

6 Keep up with household rehab

JaneB

By 25th of June

1) paper, joint with my now-colleague PDF, which is due for a conference special issue at the end of June (so far exists as a conference presentation from last summer).

2) write and give talks at regional meeting (late May, mostly written), international meeting-via-Skype (they invited me, I was already committed to regional meeting, so will be talking without the travel. Mixed feelings on that one!), and if I get my Passport back in time, a talk at a workshop in a handily nearby part of Europe.

3) substantial progress on the simulations needed for ProblemChild, a project that has languished in the mires of Poor Communication, but now the blocking collaborators have re-emerged and the work needs to move quite fast (it's due to be presented at the start of July at a conference and submitted for publication late summer). I'm not the lead here, just the technical advisor!

4) develop an exercise habit

5) develop a decluttering/housework habit

karen

-make space for reading (reading fuels writing)

-forward (incremental) momentum on writing

-committed but flexible approach to self care (exercise, sleep, good food choices)

KJHaxton

Session goals:

- acronym report and paper done and submitted

- House project variant 1 - summer student supervised and significant progress

- House project variant 2 - summer students recruited and decent progress

- Test the water on various other projects

- Scary project - paper submitted, next steps established

- 8 science outreach events planned, run and evaluated

- draft paper on tesla project outlined and data considered

- one conference presentation given, abstract for another to submit and give if accepted

- Carry on with my GoodReads challenge - now at 32/52 books. Not sure about hand crafted items this summer - the garden calls more strongly in the summer months so I'm thinking more 'grow pretty flowers and tasty fruits and veggies'.

Matilda

Write Chapter 2

Revise Chapter 1

Plan Chapter 3

Write a book review

Keep writing regularly

Construct healthy habits

Susan

In terms of TLQ, I'm almost finished a book manuscript (awaiting reader's reports) and my main goal for this session is to get it off to the press and in production. I just want to be DONE. There are a couple of other minor tasks -- a book review, preparing materials for a regular merit review, etc, but the book is the thing. In addition, my elderly mother, who has been quite ill with various things over the past year, lives in my town, and requires regular attention. I will disappear for the month of July because my sister is coming to be the responsible person for my mother. I will take vacation -- or rather three separate vacation trips. Then I have a conference for which I have to write something thoughtful in mid-August. So that's the summer. In all of this, I'd like to keep up with exercise, and return to reading. We'll see!

Waffles

TLQ summer goals:

1. Manuscript 1 submitted

2. Manuscript 2 drafted

3. Manuscript from diss

4. F32 application

5. Other minor grant apps