Hello everyone.
This is not a very inspired post, as I got back this evening from a weekend in London in the kind of sticky heat which I don't do well in, having got to bed around 1 am, which is very late for me. I was at an Arctic Monkeys concert at the Emirates stadium. Not sure what the US equivalent would be, but think big football stadium, rock band on tour, screaming fans. It was my daughter's birthday present. It was actually kind of fun, and I did really like the music, but it was probably something I should have done in my twenties, not my forties.
So, in part inspired by the music theme, this week's prompt is rituals and routines. What do you do to get into writing mode? Do you listen to particular kinds of music, or is silence a necessity? Do you need a particular notebook to hand, or a clear desk? And what times of the day work for writing? Do you have preferred times? Do you need a whole day clear, or is an hour enough?
Last week's goals:
JaneB
1) Self-care:
baselines, sort through the Combined Pile, book the Decluttering Lady for
sometime soon
2) Researcher: Wish-we-never-started project - at
least 5 hours of work. Final action steps on very overdue paper. Two
"small jobs"
3) Teaching: responding quickly to requests (for
late marking, mark checking, bureaucracy etc.). Feedback to all new MSc students
on their project paperwork). Make a summer list.
4) Fun. Play D&D or do some D&D planning.
Read something. If the yarn arrives, start the next blanket. Make a summer wish
list for non- work days.
Julie
1. Finish the spreadsheet
2. Follow up on references from unexpectedly
useful article
3. Research French archive catalogues
4. Read book on one of my French case studies.
5. Read Difficult PhD student's chapter ahead of
meeting IF he sends it through.
6. Do some gardening
7. Ring someone about a couple of medium to large
house & garden jobs.
8. Book overdue blood test (I don't want my high
cholesterol confirmed).
9. Enjoy quality time with daughter while son away
on school trip (= watching Queen Charlotte on Netflix)
Dame Eleanor
Have fun at
conference!
File travel claim as soon as I get back.
Read book for book group #2.
Do another 1-2 things from Summer List.
Daisy
Get fancy machine
working with help of friendly physicists
TRY AGAIN Take one day for writing a couple of
paper sections
Write outline for joint student paper
Write promotion review
Write association report
Get myself and students ready for field work….
heu mihi
1. Read more!
2. Get caught up on some journal stuff: proofs of
one article, check in with co-editor about proofing the others and a
questionable review
3. Read 3 articles for promotion review
4. Two yard tasks
5. Make summer list(s)
6. Make 10 pages--I would really like to make time
for this!
7. Prepare for and enjoy my son's birthday, which
is on Wednesday (party scheduled for Friday, weather permitting)
Susan
1. Do article reviews
2. Read 2 more books
3. Write a paragraph of Big Collaboration Intro
4. Confirm last bits of fall schedule
5. Budget for next year
6. PEOPLE FOR JOBS
7. Spring schedule
8. Contact attorney
9. Fill in many forms
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePoor kitty! I'm not surprised it's hard to concentrate, you have a lot going on. Enjoy the time with your friend. It's lovely that you've been friends for so long.
ReplyDeleteLike Susan, I can't have music on with lyrics. I don't usually write to music: I might have classical on if I'm doing something admin related, or marking. I no longer need absolute total silence, but noise has to be background and easy to filter out so, for example, I can sometimes write in a cafe but not if there's a loud conversation at the next table. In general, though, I need things to be fairly quiet. I write best in the mornings, but it can take a while to get started: 11-1 is probably my most productive time, and then afternoons are often slow again until 3ish, when I get a second wind. I wrote my PhD mostly between 11-1 and 5-8 pm, but since having kids 5-8 pm is no longer an option, and I'm too tired in the evenings. I prefer to have whole days for writing because it can take time to get started, but I'm getting better at using just an hour if that's all the time I can spare.
ReplyDeleteLast week
1. Finish the spreadsheet - NO (but have decided to just do bits as I go along, so it doesn't take over)
2. Follow up on references from unexpectedly useful article - YES (several interlibrary loans requested)
3. Research French archive catalogues - SOME
4. Read book on one of my French case studies - YES (one chapter left).
5. Read Difficult PhD student's chapter ahead of meeting IF he sends it through. - NO (sent it through morning before the meeting, said he wanted a 'different agenda' for the meeting. Difficult Conversation ensued.)
6. Do some gardening - YES - cleared some weeds from the back.
7. Ring someone about a couple of medium to large house & garden jobs. - YES, hoping they come this week.
8. Book overdue blood test (I don't want my high cholesterol confirmed). - YES - and NO, turns out not needed until July. I have 6 weeks to get my cholesterol down!
9. Enjoy quality time with daughter while son away on school trip (= watching Queen Charlotte on Netflix) - YES (Netflix and of course this weekend).
This week:
1. Finish French book
2. More archive searches
3. Read two interlibrary loans
4. Read Difficult PhD chapter
5. Garden - find some chairs for the patio, maybe hire a gardener
6. House - 1-2 small to medium jobs
7. Niece's birthday present
8. Get back on exercise bandwagon.
9. Book trip to Liverpool to meet new other niece.
For me, the "time to get started" is worse when I've been away from a project, and less if I can work on it more steadily. I hope you can get your cholesterol down on your own! Also I'm glad to see other people listing reading goals; it will help me to think of you reading, like being in a virtual library.
DeleteOhh sorry about the Difficult Student! It looks like you got a lot of reading and productive work in last week, though, and I hope that your quality time with your daughter was lovely.
DeleteMy schedule is similar - maybe 10-1 and 4-7, but definite down time mid-afternoon. But *so* hard to get started!
DeletePoor Ginger George! The Cone Of Shame is such a nuisance. And be kind to yourself... too much going on to concentrate, and the time with friends is more important.
ReplyDeleteThe now-obligatory first comment to get Blogger to recognize me (DEH).
ReplyDeleteThe joys of technology!
DeleteI don't like music for writing, only for marking papers. I'm not sure what I do to get myself in the writing zone---sometimes there's a lot of faffing about, thinking of more websites to check, or another e-mail to send, anything to put off the moment of facing that I'm not sure whether a paragraph needs go Here or There, whether I need another paragraph of introduction or can get on with the next section of argument, which are the kinds of things I'm working on at present. Opening up documents is a good first step. Traditionally I have preferred mornings as writing time, but I take it where I can get it. An hour here or there is less threatening than having a whole day to play with, though once a project develops momentum I'm glad to have more time to put into it, and I find it does make the style smoother if I write in large chunks instead of small snippets.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
Have fun at conference! YEESSSSS!!! It was splendid.
File travel claim as soon as I get back. YES, well, not quite "as soon as" but before the weekend ended.
Read book for book group #2. YES, also made it to book group and enjoyed the meeting.
Do another 1-2 things from Summer List. YES (planted seedlings, made a trip to Huge Hardware Store).
New goals:
- process proofs for article coming out in July
- expand Alms chapter
- dead languages 3x each or as possible
- finish reading book for tenure review
- read at least 1000 lines of Relevant Romance
- process at least 3 grad apps
- at least 2 things from Huge Summer List
Yay for a Splendid conference, that is how things should be!
DeleteI'm glad that you had a good time! And congratulations on surviving the trip to Huge Hardware--I hate that store (or rather, those stores, since there are two). They're too damn BIG.
DeleteAround here there are 3, though I have cut that back to 2 again b/c I boycott HD due to its owner's support of the last president. I don't mind the size! I actually think it would be fun to work at the store I usually go to (if I didn't have plenty of other things to do).
DeleteEchoing Jane on being kind to yourself. The death of a parent is lot to process, and now you have concern for George as well. I hope he'll feel better soon, and that you have a good time with your friend. It is lovely to have such people in one's life.
ReplyDeleteIt's not been a great week here - this sort of sticky heat is exactly what I am NOT designed for (and it isn't that hot here compared to other places in the UK) and coupled with the side-effects from the changed medication dose I've done a lot of lying around growling at noises and trying to get myself to do something... But the very last piece of late marking for June is now done, and today I had a Difficult Meeting about a graduate student (not with them, at least - the problem is that they are not getting the promised support from colleagues or from admin, and it's starting to be a real problem, especially as my issue with the missing grant money continues so I can't even help them out) and a frustrating meeting with a student (who is on their last last chance and I had to bring in a colleague from student services to have a witness that the student had been told that this was their last chance, because they seem to be in denial and they have a complex set of issues), but I did those things. And the decluttering lady just had to cancel because her childcare fell through... oh well! First world problems!
ReplyDeleteSo, in part inspired by the music theme, this week's prompt is rituals and routines. What do you do to get into writing mode? Do you listen to particular kinds of music, or is silence a necessity? Do you need a particular notebook to hand, or a clear desk? And what times of the day work for writing? Do you have preferred times? Do you need a whole day clear, or is an hour enough?
Rituals and routines: the brain squirrels get bored with ANYTHING, so rituals and routines don't tend to last long (but they also get obsessed with things in the short term, so when they are in place they are in PLACE). What do I do to get into writing mode - once I'm sat down but the writing isn't happening, I freewrite or I retype the last paragraph or two that I wrote to warm the muscles up. The noise is something that varies - I can do music with words if it's the same music for the same task every time (for the last couple of years I've marked to either 'Cogs, Wheels and Lovers' by Steeleye Span or to a Dead South concert on youtube) or if it's one song on a loop (Ode to Fury or Wake the White Wolf or Valhalla Calling Me for some reason are current work music and get my backside up off the bed music), because then the words become part of the background sound. And if I need to do maths - Bach's Kunst der Fuge (that's been my algebra music since undergrad! for some reason the albums I had for other subjects didn't stick quite as stickily). When I'm writing fiction - Smoke Fairies. For any kind of writing I need something to write on manually and a decent pen or pencil to hand, for work writing that should be my work journal/commonplace book, or something I can paste into that later, because I lose notes all the time otherwise. No preferred times (well. the wee hours of the morning, but that tends to ness up the whole of the following week, so I don't encourage the squirrels...), and I've gotten much better at using small pieces of time - this group taught me to 'park on a downhill slope' and given the nature of my job (and the squirrels), whenever I have a meeting about a writing project or a half day or more of writing time I ensure that I follow up or use the last few minutes to write down a number of small (30min-1hour) next steps on my rolling to do list - they can then go onto the small jobs list for busy weeks, be pulled from if I get an unexpected time gap etc., and they help me progress projects in small pieces of time rather than spending the time trying to decide what to do...
LAST WEEK'S GOALS:
Delete1) Self-care: baselines, sort through the Combined Pile, book the Decluttering Lady for sometime soon yes, yes (but she just had to cancel, sigh)
2) Researcher: Wish-we-never-started project - at least 5 hours of work. Final action steps on very overdue paper. Two "small jobs" no, had a meeting which resulted in... a list of more final action steps. yes, actually four small jobs.
3) Teaching: responding quickly to requests (for late marking, mark checking, bureaucracy etc.). Feedback to all new MSc students on their project paperwork). Make a summer list. yes, paperwork yes, no
4) Fun. Play D&D or do some D&D planning. Read something. If the yarn arrives, start the next blanket. Make a summer wish list for non- work days. no, but I hung out and drew with the nibling on line for a couple of hours, and have been doing more art this week. Read about a third of a book. The yarn arrived and I didn;t start the blanket, but I did make a couple of wonky anigurumi type figures out of scrap yarn from the last project. no
Apparently my brain squirrels are not in list-making moods, and I'm lacking the executive function to get them to cooperate... oh well! This week is the last exam-related meeting of this trimester, so then it will properly be summer break (although resits still have to be set etc...)
THIS WEEK'S SOMEWHAT REPETITIVE GOALS
1) Self-care: baselines, book the Decluttering Lady for sometime soon, make a Drs appointment
2) Researcher: Wish-we-never-started project - at least 5 hours of work. Near-final action steps on very overdue paper. Two "small jobs"
3) Teaching: Feedback to all new MSc students on their project ideas. Make a summer list.
4) Fun. Play D&D or do some D&D planning. Read something. Start the next blanket. Draw something. Make a summer wish list for non- work days
Congratulations on getting through those difficult student meetings--those are Not Fun. I hope that this week is more pleasant all around!
DeleteI'm glad that your friend is visiting--that sounds really nice. Take care.
ReplyDeleteLike several others, I'm not a music-while-I-write kind of person. I've gotten out of the habit of playing music in general since my 20s; I have to remind myself that it's even an option when I'm at home. I do waffle around the internet quite a bit before I get started, though. Nothing too time-consuming, although my mother recently got me into Spelling Bee, and I have to make a good dent on that every morning before I get going. And I have also developed a minor addiction to a math-ish game that my son (of all people) told me about; I really need to kick that one. (It's 2048, for anyone who wants to succumb to massive wastes of time.)
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Read more! - Yes; this is one of those goals where almost anything will count as accomplishing it! But I did actually plow through Mechthild of Magdeburg's Flowing Light of the Godhead *in its entirety* (not for the first time, but definitely the fastest)--I'm de-anonymizing it for bragging rights.
2. Get caught up on some journal stuff: proofs of one article, check in with co-editor about proofing the others and a questionable review - Yes, done; now I have another article to read
3. Read 3 articles for promotion review - Yes; two of them wound up being shorter than I'd expected--yay!
4. Two yard tasks - Yes
5. Make summer list(s) - Yes, more or less
6. Make 10 pages--I would really like to make time for this! - YES--by the skin of my teeth!
7. Prepare for and enjoy my son's birthday, which is on Wednesday (party scheduled for Friday, weather permitting) - Yes
This week:
1. Finish reading for promotion review and draft letter
2. Read JO, start LMS, skim relevant parts of PL, start BM, read AW
3. Make 10 pages
4. Notes on MM; draft vignettes on JM and MM
5. Process journal article
This is too much, especially since Son is home all week (school ended on the 16th), but there we go!
That's an awesome amount of DONE, especially the reading!
DeleteSpelling bee. It's really hard to stop. (I didn't do it for some time, and started up again a few weeks ago, and it's not been good, since it's not how my brain works.)
DeleteI love 2048 but I have to try really hard to not start playing it late at night... the brain squirrels are great at fixating on simple, non-time-constrained games like that...
DeleteMy week seems to be starting today, as well. Monday I had slept v. badly, Tuesday had a lot of appointments plus side effects of second shingles shot received Monday. I think today I'm okay, so let's see how this goes---bon courage, Susan!
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