Last week's goals:
JaneB
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15
minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one
day this WILL happen)
* get a birthday package in the post for my sister (it includes a plushy baby
goat as we have been exchanging screaming goat memes over some parental
frustrations lately)
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare teaching for next week & do ViLE stuff
* nag all tutees about meetings
* mid year monitoring for one grad student, check in with another (who has
personal drama going on which has required her to pack up herself and her dog
and move back in with her mother at no notice, so is not having a good time and
possibly needs to take a study break),
* write applicant letters
4) RESEARCH
* meetings about five differenet obligations will probably take ALL my research
time this week... but lets pretend magic will happen and have a couple of
"an hour on" stretch goals!
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am
so fed up with this paper...
Dame Eleanor
- measurable work on essay for proceedings volume
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out
- fill in two sets of forms that involve money
- catch up with ViLE stuff
- revise syllabus
- yoga x5, swim 1-2 times, trainer session
- finish application for the Revised Thing
- find & print some tax documents
- send birthday cards for two friends
- go to former student's presentation
Susan
1. Put final touches on lecture for next week
2. Figure out what I'm doing in the 3 other talks I'm now giving before the end
of June, use that to plan my time. (It's all theme and variations, but I don't
want them to be all the same.)
3. Read for pleasure
4. Weights x 3, walk to work once, yoga x1
5. Keep up with regular bedtime, earlier dinner
6. Make plane reservations for summer
Daisy
ENDLESS student thesis stuff
A different grant application
Three student grant applications
Reference letters
Final bits of all musical, all the time…
Contingent Cassandra
--Continue work on site, including getting transcription and
user accounts set up; figure out csv export and import (which seem to require
two separate procedures)
--Add additional documents to site (and/or divide existing ones into pages for
transcription)
--Continue movement, especially strength training of arms/shoulders (since
having those as strong as possible going into surgery presumably can’t hurt,
though nerve damage is admittedly a somewhat separate issue)
--Do some work in the garden
--Plan/prioritize other household work
--Write paper proposal for fall conference (being optimistic
here, but this is a once-every-three-years conference that focuses exactly on
my specialty, so I really want to go. Also, it's in a close-by city reachable
by train, and mid-fall, so chances of my being able to attend seem good)
Heu mihi
Still travelling?
Julie
1. Finish last section of research proposal, send
application to colleagues.
2. Do fiddly bits of grant: revising costings etc.
3. Write two references for students.
4. Read student's PhD thesis.
5. Advise other student about viva.
6. Start marking ALL the essays.
7. Research summer holiday options, book train tickets for two weekends away,
organise lift-sharing for various sporting events.
Hello everyone!
ReplyDeleteMy Sunday ritual involves a lie-in, a leisurely morning with a book or a podcast and spending time with the cat, doing a few chores (because despite my best efforts, they NEVER get done earlier in the week at the moment), and taking a shower complete with hair washing and conditioning (my hair is currently long enough it only needs washing once a week at this time of year, and takes a few hours to air dry). In the afternoon I play D&D with my nibling and any of their friends who are free via a video call, then make dinner, pack my lunch for the next week, and have my weekly "meeting with myself"... some weeks it works, some weeks I suddenly wake up about 10pm and can't sleep until 3am or 4am, sigh...
Looking forward to it being mild enough that the leisurely morning includes an hour outside on the bench with tea/coffee and my book...
LAST WEEK:
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing ish, yes, yes, yes 4 days, not really
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one day this WILL happen) definitely not!, no
* get a birthday package in the post for my sister (it includes a plushy baby goat as we have been exchanging screaming goat memes over some parental frustrations lately) yes! and the goat is now called Edward and much appreciated
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare teaching for next week & do ViLE stuff yes
* nag all tutees about meetings yes. Didn't really work, half of them didn't manage to turn up
* mid year monitoring for one grad student, check in with another (who has personal drama going on which has required her to pack up herself and her dog and move back in with her mother at no notice, so is not having a good time and possibly needs to take a study break) yes, no (planned as I need to contact her anyway on Monday & don't want to crowd her)
* write applicant letters did applicant letters. This is not an over-thinker-friendly task...
4) RESEARCH
* meetings about five differenet obligations will probably take ALL my research time this week... but lets pretend magic will happen and have a couple of "an hour on" stretch goals! meetings happened. Some were interesting...
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea no
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up with this paper... no...
Both the grad students approaching submission submitted their theses this week! The admin item did get partly sorted - after I chased it twice daily until Thursday, when a nice junior administrative assistant worked out how to bypass part of the issue and get things set up for the grad student to submit; the signatures are now done but too late for the final approval stage, so the exam will likely be delayed. GAH.
And the teaching observation was not the best session, especially the bit where I pressed the wrong button on the podium and crashed the computer that was presenting my slides, requiring some improv whilst waiting for it to reboot - I've never done THAT before, but there's a first time for everything - but heck, it happened, the handouts/ViLE material/practical activities all worked fine, and students mostly seemed to learn what I hoped they'd learn.
The feedback session on the teaching observation hasn't even been scheduled yet, naturally.
DeleteTHIS COMING WEEK:
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one day this WILL happen)
* make card & get presents for Ma's birthday (this is the many-events period of the year)
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
next week is Reading Week so no classes for my undergraduates - but the following week is overly full for me with some new material, so I'd like to get ahead. Also that way I might manage a day or two OFF (to catch up on house stuff) next week since apparently my normal weekend isn't enough to do that right now...
* prepare half of teaching for week after next & do ViLE stuff
* email all tutees who didn't make the meeting
* plan some methods training with new masters student
* check in with student with crisis
* write more applicant letters (I did all of MINE by the deadline but as ever the reward for doing things is more things and now I need to help out with other people's allocations)
* meet with now-senior grad student to follow up on their mid-year meeting
4) RESEARCH
* exciting new project idea meeting
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up with this paper...
Sounds like quite a bit of decent progress, by yourself, grad students, and helpful admin types. And at least the observation is over, and sounds like it went well (recovering from unexpected events while keeping things going is, after all, part of the job). Glad the goat was appreciated.
DeleteYour Sunday ritual sounds lovely, and restorative.
Your Sunday mornings sound perfect. Well done with the grad students; that's a big job. It's typical that the sessions that are observed are the ones where something goes wrong, but being able to improvise through IT failures is very much part of the job!
Deletespennd moar tym wif kat kthxbai
DeleteSince I’m a regular churchgoer (and a member of the choir, and the adult education committee, and a lay reader, and belong to a small group that meets every other Sunday evening), Sunday is not really a day off for me, though it is the one day on which I don’t check work email (when I’m teaching, I tell students to get questions that need to be answered before Monday in by noon on Saturday. They don’t always get answered in the early afternoon, but I do feel free to snooze anything that comes in later until Monday).
ReplyDeleteI also prefer to do errands when I’m already out in the car, which means that Sunday after church if often my grocery shopping time, and my garden plot is in a park across the street from my church (and half an hour away from my home), so I often stop to pick lettuce on the way home as well. Tl;dr: my Sundays are pretty busy.
I think my meeting-with-self/planning days are more Friday and/or Saturday (preferably Friday for work stuff and Saturday for household stuff). If that doesn’t happen (and sometimes even if it does), Monday tends to get a bit chaotic, since I’m not sure what to do first. I don’t really have a solution. In some cases, designating a day of the week to do certain kinds of things works pretty well (e.g. I do most financial-management stuff on Saturdays), but that system easily falls apart because there are so few truly “normal” weeks (so work stuff spills into Saturday, thanks in part to the email system mentioned above, and then financial stuff gets urgent and spills into Sunday and/or the following week).
So I guess designating days on which to concentrate on particular things is the closest I have to a workable system for such things, but it still falls apart on a pretty regular basis. I do generally find it useful to start a day (and, when possible, week) with a sense of what I’m *not* going to try to get done that day/week, since there are always more possible things I could do than time available.
And an actual day off would be a very good idea. I’ve periodically tried to institute some sort of pattern of taking a full day off, or even a full morning or afternoon off, each week, even if it's a different day each week (and/or what counts as a day "off" -- leisure reading, long walk, day in the garden -- varies each week), but that, too, has met with mixed success.
Goals for last week:
Delete--Continue work on site, including getting transcription and user accounts set up; figure out csv export and import (which seem to require two separate procedures)
mostly; still need to figure out import
--Add additional documents to site (and/or divide existing ones into pages for transcription)
yes
--Continue movement, especially strength training of arms/shoulders (since having those as strong as possible going into surgery presumably can’t hurt, though nerve damage is admittedly a somewhat separate issue)
yes
--Do some work in the garden
yes
--Plan/prioritize other household work
work in progress
--Write paper proposal for fall conference
yes
Reflection:
A reasonably productive week. I’m especially pleased that I finally seem to be nearing a point where the transcription site is ready to show to others (though it’s still definitely a work in progress, and I need to pay some attention to making it easier to navigate from various point, as well as to which landing points I direct testers and approvers to).
Goals for the coming week:
Delete--Continue work on site: figure out csv import; add additional documents (both full documents & individual pages for transcription); work on making site more easily navigable, especially from key landing pages
--Draft call for transcribers and other helpers and run draft and site by organizational leaders who need to okay distribution of the call via the organization’s communication channels
--Finish signup directions and guidelines for transcribers, communicate with people who have volunteered to test the directions/site
--Write department chair, program director, and scheduling coordinator re: possible adjustments to fall schedule
--Write colleague who has recently dealt with HR/university’s medical leave system for advice
--Continue movement, especially strength training of arms/shoulders (perhaps begin using some of the recommended post-op stretches as warmups?)
--Do additional work in the garden (weeding, seed-sowing, mulching, bed-building)
--Make progress on choosing/ordering refrigerator (and possibly stove), moving over-fridge cabinet, other fridge-replacement-related moving around of things, and/or packing/mailing returns.
--Plan/prioritize other household work
That sounds like a tricky schedule to manage, but garden work is a nice thing to do on a Sunday. I find it amazing that students would expect an email reply on a Saturday or for you even to be looking at email then. My department has gotten much better in recent years in establishing a no-email-at-weekends culture.
DeleteI have a friend who does well with themed days of the week, like "Money Monday," but she doesn't have a job, which probably helps with keeping tasks corralled. My method is pretty much rob Peter to pay Paul, which reminds me that I haven't paid bills yet and should have added that to my goals for the week!
DeleteSunday for me often involves a run in the morning, depending on whether I've managed to run on the Saturday, and whether my neighbour and running buddy is free. Otherwise, it's less of a frantic clearing the decks for the week ahead than it used to be, now I don't work Mondays. I still plan meals for the week ahead, write a list for the Monday morning shop, and figure out what work needs doing. For a long time, I thought Sunday dinner had to be more elaborate than during the week, and it took me a long time and a lot of other stress before I realised there was no need to put myself under that kind of pressure. Now I sometimes cook something complicated or that needs advance prep, but it depends what else has been happening.
ReplyDeleteA recent ritual that I really enjoy is that my kids and I sit and read together for a while on Sunday evenings.
Last week:
1. Finish last section of research proposal, send application to colleagues. - YES
2. Do fiddly bits of grant: revising costings etc. - YES
3. Write two references for students. - YES
4. Read student's PhD thesis. - 4 chapters out of 5
5. Advise other student about viva. - YES
6. Start marking ALL the essays. - YES (but so, so many to go)
7. Research summer holiday options, book train tickets for two weekends away, organise lift-sharing for various sporting events. - NO, NO, YES
A fair amount done, but weekend was derailed by the Airbnb host where we were meant to be staying at Easter with my SIL and her family having to cancel the booking (serious medical emergency). So spent a large chunk of Sunday searching for available properties . Now waiting on SIL to get back to me about options.
This week:
1. Revisions to grant application.
2. More and more marking.
3. Read final chapter of thesis and meet with student.
4. Teaching prep: keep minimal.
5. Celebrate (hopefully) with other grad student after her viva.
6. Get organised for friends visiting this weekend.
7. Book train tickets, find replacement booking for Easter, apply for daughter's provisional driving license (so not ready for this).
8. Self-care: read a novel, try to get outside as much as possible.
Running and reading both sound like good Sunday activities. I hope you can sort out the Easter weekend soon.
DeleteLove the Sunday reading together custom, that is an excellent bookend (pun intended) to the week!
DeleteSunday: like Contingent Cassandra, I'm a regular churchgoer, so that's part of my day. Right now it happens in the morning, but back at home our service, for a variety of reasons, is in the afternoon. For 3 1/2 years I've also been writing (almost) weekly "Reflections on the Lectionary" -- between 500 and 750 words usually about something that struck me. Since the pandemic, we have also often had a family zoom on Sunday morning; since my sister lives in Paris, it's in the morning, but the time varies, especially since my nephew plays multiple sports and games, practices, etc intervene. It's a bit more flexible now that my mother has died, but it's a nice way to keep up with my siblings. Like CC, I often do grocery shopping on my way home from church. I try to cook something (soup, stew, etc) on Sunday with the goal of leftovers; but I'll also invite friends over for Sunday supper... I try not to do work, but I almost inevitably check email.
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEK:
1. Put final touches on lecture for next week MOSTLY (Have read it aloud twice, and each time I find things I need to fix. But it's coming in at the right time, so . . .
2. Figure out what I'm doing in the 3 other talks I'm now giving before the end of June, use that to plan my time. (It's all theme and variations, but I don't want them to be all the same.) NO
3. Read for pleasure A LITTLE
4. Weights x 3, walk to work once, yoga x1 YES NO NO
5. Keep up with regular bedtime, earlier dinner YES
6. Make plane reservations for summer NO
AND ALSO: last Monday I got an email reminding me I'd promised a 2-3000 word response to 2 articles for February 24. I had not written it down and so... I have a pretty good draft that needs footnotes, but otherwise done.
So, the "AND ALSO" cramped my style a lot. Also, I've clearly been fighting some bug, so have had days when I was just really tired and not focused. So not a lot of exercise, but on Saturday I walked to the local bookstore to get my brother a birthday present, and yesterday I walked to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Yesterday I also spent the morning watching my very talented nephew play basketball and then flag football, thus doing my aunt-ly duty. (Basketball I enjoy watching and understand, flag football was completely confusing.) I also had a friend for dinner on Friday, so it was a sociable week.
THIS WEEK:
1. Finish the "And Also" response, add footnotes
2. Add the next revisions to my talk, practice it again
3. Try to get back to exercise: weights x 2, yoga x 1, 1 good walk
4. Figure out the next 3 talks (increasing panic, as one is at the endof the month)
5. Read for pleasure
6. Keep up with earlier dinners / bedtime
7. Work on migrating church website to a new hosting platform
8. Make reservations for summer travel.
9. Enjoy the public lecture and it being done.
I hope that you feel better this week and that the lecture goes well! Congrats on getting the response done so fast.
DeleteFeel better! Hope all the talk prep and giving it is all enjoyable and rewarding.
DeleteSundays… I usually wake up at my normal time of somewhere around 6am (thanks cats…) so I enjoy the chance to read in bed at least for a little while. In my aspirational (possibly entirely imaginary) Sundays I then get up and exercise. On real Sundays I usually just get up and make tea and read while everyone in the house except the cats are sleeping. I enjoy that! Most Sundays have work stuff that gets done, at a fairly leisurely pace. Or kid activities, or concerts, or cleaning… On non-activity days the post-4pm long dark teatime of the soul is definitely a real thing… That’s usually when I start cooking things to feel somewhat organized for the rest of the week!
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals
ENDLESS student thesis stuff ONGOING, TRULY ENDLESS
A different grant application DONE
Three student grant applications DONE
Reference letters DONE
Final bits of all musical, all the time… DONE, HUGE SUCCESS
What a month… All for good causes and all but it was a lot. I need to make a plan for March otherwise it is going to go by in a flash and I will wake up one morning and it will be April!
This week’s goals
ENDLESS student thesis stuff
Advertising posters and organizing for interdepartmental event
Many meetings about hiring
All the marking…
Make March plan for schedule and activities
Reading and cooking sounds like a good way to spend the day.
DeleteIn theory, Sunday is a day of rest and hanging out at home. In practice, I often have other days in the week when, due either to fatigue or to too-damn-much-running-around, I get no actual real work done, so Sunday may be a time to catch up. Last Sunday, Sir John and I had been out late at a party the night before and both felt sort of hung-over, not from alcohol but from not getting enough sleep (and the party wasn't even worth it, IMO). But I also did some cooking for the week ahead, another thing I try to take care of on Sundays. Since my gym is closed on Sundays, I either go for a walk or take the whole day off from exercise.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- measurable work on essay for proceedings volume: NO. Opened two PDFs of things I wanted to re-read/take notes on, but that was it; and then the organizers put off the due date a few more months!
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper: NO
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out: NO
- fill in two sets of forms that involve money: ONE
- catch up with ViLE stuff: YES (temporarily)
- revise syllabus: YES
- yoga x5, swim 1-2 times, trainer session: YES, NO, YES
- finish application for the Revised Thing: YES
- find & print some tax documents: NO
- send birthday cards for two friends: YES
- go to former student's presentation: YES
ALSO: I am totally caught up on the graduate applications!!!! And although we have rolling admissions, I think the heavy season is over.
New goals:
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out
- load some more stuff to ViLE site
- read Thing for a friend
- fill in one set of forms that involves money
- yoga x5, cardio x5, trainer session
- find & print some tax documents
- order more flowers for niece
- set goals for March
I have been awarded the Thing. I now get to sign myself the So-and-So Distinguished Professor of English! Also there will be more money. And more work, which is why I was so dubious about the Thing in the first place. But I do like being Distinguished.
DeleteCongratulations on the Thing Award! Distinguished Professor has a very nice ring to it!
DeleteHello all,
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note to say that this semester is eating me alive, but I may be digging myself out of the hole? Costa Rica was wonderful, but my laptop died on Day 2. While on the one hand this meant that I couldn't work for a week (hooray!), I'm only *just* starting to feel caught up on email, and I'm still using a loaner computer, which means that I don't have easy access to my files, etc.
I hope to be back to setting goals next week--for now, I just need to keep on shoveling! But I look forward to catching up on all of your doings!
Oh, I hope there's a sudden thaw so you don't have to shovel! Or are you shoveling things that would be worse in warm weather? :-) Anyway, good luck, sorry to hear about the computer, but glad you had a good trip.
Delete