Happy solstice! Campus was swarming with anxious, excited, slightly hungover, confused students this week which definitely changes the mood of the department - partly because of all the people who are rediscovering that summer is different, and we're back to the 30 minute wait at every food venue for coffees, and the soup runs out at our usual lunch place at least half an hour earlier, partly because it's curtain up time. This is definitely new stationary season! This week, let's talk about notebooks - how do you keep all your ideas and thoughts and little things you need to remember and research materials organised? Are you fully digital, or do you still have physical notebooks? Are you a "use the basic old reliable and throw them out when full" or the "ONLY this brand in THIS colour" kind of person? Any notebook use tips you've learnt as you've grown into your academic self?
Anyone who wants to join a week late, please do, you're always welcome!
GOALS FROM LAST WEEK
DAISY
Organize student project meetings and tasks
Organize my writing tasks so I can pick something to work on each day
Organize my schedule so I have some time blocks to write
Pick one block and write! (if only it was that easy…)
DAME ELEANOR HULL
- at least 3 writing sessions
- grade grad quizzes, comment on undergrad in-class writing
- read another essay submission
- do Saturday loooong workshop thingy
- assorted appointments (eyes, PT, other)
- remember to be in all the right places at the right times!
HEU MIHI
2. Proofs & index of 50 pages of book.
3. Read 35 pages of Italian.
4. Read grad student's chapter.
5. Exercise at least 4 times. (It's a busy week with many inconvenient meetings that will require me to be creative about my workout schedule....)
JANEB
a) intentional movement for at least 15 minutes three days (the two non campus days and one of the weekend days)
b) making a couple of times a week,
c) two gently social things (D&D hopefully)
d) keep up reading for pleasure
IMPROVING MY ENVIRONMENT
a) 75%+ of the weekly list of chores
b) make a plan for the shelving in the living room
c) don't make clothes worse
d) get a new cat litter trapping mat
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) get week 2 materials set up (next week is week 0)
b) limit teaching and admin to 5 hours at weekend
c) identify reading/outline discussion points for new topic for honour module
d) admin role - check my allocation of other people's ViLE sites (we have a checklist of the minimal information that needs to be there, for consistency, and guidelines for assessment requirements. Some people do not think it applies to THEM. This led to a major and embarrassing situation at the exam board with all the external examiners, so this year we are doing the checking By The Book. Sigh. WHY can't we trust adults to follow the rules?)
e) make contact with all my tutees/supervisees
b) attend meetings for big project (more meetings. they love meetings)
c) make the list of all the projects that are in the air, and their current status
d) do feedback comments on texts for senior MSc student and former visiting postdoc.
e) get box text back from former PhD student and send to other author for a different paper.
JULIE
2. Work on chapter for edited volume.
3. Difficult conversation with car crash PhD student. This should be a final conversation, but he's reluctant to accept the inevitable, and my co-supervisor is not good at confrontation so....
4. Self-care: physio appointment (back is playing up again), journal, read, do something creative.
5. Pilates and run if physio allows.
6. House stuff: clear some stuff from garage, fix a couple of small things, buy new coffee pot (nothing happens without coffee!).
Ooh, notebooks. One of my favourite things. I am still working on the perfect system. I have tried separate notebooks for separate things, a single notebook with dividers, you name it. I am a sucker for pretty notebooks and I much prefer writing by hand.
ReplyDeleteMy current system is to have one notebook for research ideas. This is a hardback Moleskine, a sort of turquoise colour. I prefer narrow lined. I have numbered the pages and divided it up with headings that correspond roughly to different strands of my research and therefore (mostly embryonic) articles. I note down ideas as I have them, but also useful readings, examples of sources etc. The idea is that when I come to work on that aspect, I don't have multiple post-stick notes or scribbled references in different places.
I also have a soft cover, red Moleskine notebook currently for day-to-day stuff. This now has everything I might want to make notes on - seminars, workshops, notes for reports, things I've come across, things to check. I number the pages as I go along, and have left space at the front for a contents list. Some stuff will get crossed out once it's noted elsewhere (in the research notebook, or added to a module reading list). I also note down things I might want to journal about. I think of it as my 'scribbling notebook', a term I heard in a seminar I once went to on Mass Observation diarists - one of them kept a rough notebook of things to write up for MO.
What size are your Moleskines?
DeleteA5, which for me is the best size for writing in. I use an A4 pad if I want to take notes that I will then put in a folder or binder e.g. if I'm reading a book in the library and want to take notes by hand.
DeleteAgreed, A5 takes up an A4 of on desk space which feels just about perfect. A4 paper is great as a pad, but an A4 notebook needs too much space.
DeleteAdapting to North American paper sizes was surprisingly awkward when I worked in Canada, letter size is very close to A4 but not QUITE! Then when I came back I was frustrated by how hard it was to get 9inch x 7inch notebooks, which I'd gotten used to.
Last week:
ReplyDelete1. Write report on PhD thesis and send to other examiner. - YES
2. Work on chapter for edited volume. - YES (slowly)
3. Difficult conversation with car crash PhD student. This should be a final conversation, but he's reluctant to accept the inevitable, and my co-supervisor is not good at confrontation so.... - YES (it was difficult, but I think the inevitable has been accepted...)
4. Self-care: physio appointment (back is playing up again), journal, read, do something creative. - YES, SOME, YES, NO
5. Pilates and run if physio allows. - YES
6. House stuff: clear some stuff from garage, fix a couple of small things, buy new coffee pot (nothing happens without coffee!). - YES, YES (mended a ceramic dish, put up a hook for the calendar that might actually stay up), YES (but when it came, the filter was dented, so waiting on a replacement, grrr!).
ALSO: made soup, hummus, tried a new vegetarian moussaka recipe (OK, but cooking time needed to be longer), stewed some apples from my parents' garden.
Next weekend I am off to Barcelona for a fortnight for a library and archive visit, possibly combined with a viva if university bureaucracy allows. Going with my dad, which will be interesting, but means company in the evenings, and possibly some of the time in the library (he is also doing research, as well as sorting out financial stuff).
1. Prep for viva on Thursday and submit report afterwards.
2. Workshop for recently retired colleague on Friday.
3. Prep for research trip.
4. Prep for being away for two weeks (my mum is very capable, but still need to make sure everything is lined up for her).
Lots of YES there! Sounds like it was a good week (and congrats on the run). Good luck with the preparations for your trip!
DeleteEnjoy the research trip! And if the retired colleague is the one I know, I hope it's as lovely as he is.
DeleteHave a wonderful research trip! Nice to share that with your dad!
DeleteI do love a notebook! I used to spend a good amount of my pocket money on notebooks as a child. Right now I have one work notebook which is a combination bullet journal/commonplace book which gets used for everything, and has an index at the front which lists the various projects and duties I have at the moment, so as I wrtite down something to do with a research project or attend a meeting for a committee I write the page number in the index section. That's worked for several years now, so it's clearly something I can (mostly) keep up with. I use a pre-numbered hardback dot-gird A5 Leuchturm1917 in black for work (although they are getting EXPENSIVE so I might need to change), and have a coloured one as a journal/bullet journal for home stuff. I love that it has two bookmarks - one for the latest clean page, one for the page with the week's bullet journal page - and a good durable elastic. One book lasts me 6-8 months.
ReplyDeleteI also have two cheap notebooks on the go at all times, one that lives on my desk in the office and is used for doodling, jotting things or sketching out ideas whilst talking to students etc. - I use the desk one for that so I can tear out the pages and let the student take them with them as an aide memoir - if I also need to remember something I write a short version in my commonplace book, but I often don't. And a second smaller notebook that is always in my bag, so that if I do leave my main notebook somewhere (unintentionally) I have something to write in - that's mostly a comfort notebook rather than a used one! At my home desk I have a pile of scratch paper - old envelopes and stuff - for the same job as the office notebook, random stuff. Also to do lists for a day or an afternoon go on scrap paper or scrap notebooks, then what I actually DID gets recorded in the bullet journal pages.
LAST WEEK:
DeleteSELF-CARE:
a) intentional movement for at least 15 minutes three days YES. Mostly in a bad mood but that still counts!
b) making a couple of times a week one day but I might also get something in today
c) two gently social things (D&D hopefully) none
d) keep up reading for pleasure yes!
IMPROVING MY ENVIRONMENT
a) 75%+ of the weekly list of chores no
b) make a plan for the shelving in the living room no
c) don't make clothes worse er... probably?
d) get a new cat litter trapping mat put in an order! hopefully I ordered the right thing, but at least it's not a no
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) get week 2 materials set up (next week is week 0) ish (I did but realised I need to change out half the slide deck for one module once I've sorted out the week three content, and I have been fretting about that all weekend. Sigh
b) limit teaching and admin to 5 hours at weekend yes but not sure that was a good idea as it's refused to go out of my mind!
c) identify reading/outline discussion points for new topic for honour module yes
d) admin role - check my allocation of other people's ViLE sites most went smoothly, but one person had not done theirs at all and at first told me it would be done by the next day, then just ignored me; eventually I had to hand it over to the person in charge of teaching. When I last looked about a third of people still hadn't done their checking, so... sigh
e) make contact with all my tutees/supervisees well I emailed THEM. Only two have replied.
RESEARCH
a) multi-author paper (due 15 October) schedule two meetings no
b) attend meetings for big project (more meetings. they love meetings) yes. Even MORE meetings scheduled for next week, yippee /s
c) make the list of all the projects that are in the air, and their current status mostly
d) do feedback comments on texts for senior MSc student and former visiting postdoc. yes
e) get box text back from former PhD student and send to other author for a different paper. yes. Sadly it's already back on my desk again for editing/precis. I find doing precis tedious - and even more so with a co-author.
I felt really busy (and really tired by the end of the week) but I also feel like my mind was scrambled and distracted, so it's probably not surprising that not much substantial got done. And I'm missing last year's first years, which is a really weird thing to feel, since they're all very much still here and I will even be teaching some of them in an option module this semester. But the new lot are not like the old lot, not in any bad way (at least, the 50% who've bothered to turn up to anything yet are not like the old lot), just. Not the same. And I enjoyed last year's first year! Clearly I am just In A Mood at the moment.
THE COMING WEEK is going to be busy - mostly due to meetings for large project and needing to prepare new classes for week 3 (due to a) replacing a session taught by a colleague who has left and b) the fieldsite we always take the first years to having been Substantially Altered by the landowner (as in, thank goodness a colleague visited to triple-check the state of the paths before we turned up with students, because major heavy machinery was messing up the paths and the site we usually collected samples from was in the process of being destroyed) - so we had to work out somewhere else to go & I now have to rework all the follow up sessions (they collect data and samples during the trip, and we then use that connection to a specific place and experience to hopefully help them engage with all the introductions to laboratory work and data analysis and software packages activities, which I teach, so. More work for me, yay?).
SELF-CARE:
Deletea) intentional movement for at least 15 minutes three days (the two non campus days and one of the weekend days)
b) making a couple of times a week,
c) two gently social things (D&D hopefully)
d) keep up reading for pleasure
IMPROVING MY ENVIRONMENT
a) 75%+ of the weekly list of chores
b) make a plan for the shelving in the living room
c) don't make clothes worse
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) complete prep for new honours session and revise week 2 slides to introduce it.
b) get week 3 materials set up (next week is week 1)
b) limit teaching and admin to 5 hours at weekend
c) make contact with all my tutees/supervisees - again
RESEARCH
a) multi-author paper (due 15 October) schedule two meetings
b) attend meetings for big project (more meetings. they love meetings)
c) read and comment on chapter for meeting following week
d) test the computer stuff we set up last week
e) edit/precis box text using comments.
Ah, I'm not the only one who does the "to do" list on a scrap and the "done" in the journal! I'm not consistent about it, but sometimes it's helpful to shift techniques.
DeleteI suspect one of the depressing things about admin jobs is finding out how many people either don't do stuff at all, or do it wrong or badly. I am very sorry to hear of the destruction of your usual field site, and resultant extra work. Nevertheless, it does sound like you had a week with a lot of progress in it (along with some Not Making It Worse, which is more progress than it might feel like).
Sorry about the field site. That sounds like such a pain, especially as I assume field sites aren't easily interchangeable?
DeleteIt is a pain, because especially for first years (whose needs we don't know well yet) we want a site which is not too challenging to get to, has a nearby toilet stop etc. We've come up with an alternative which will do for this year (and includes a stop at a farm shop which does good bacon butties apparently - although as they also have piglets for people to pet, some students may not appreciate them!),
DeleteMy new teaching year got off to a GREAT start when I went to the wrong building for my first class so arrived late and flustered!
Love ALL the notebooks you have! Hope you manage to find a good alternate field site, the ones that work for beginner students are so rare!
DeleteNotebooks: I use a pocket-size Moleskine (or knockoff) as a bullet journal, though it's a little small for some of the suggested spreads. But I want something that I can easily carry around with me, that will fit in purse (handbag) or pocket, so I sacrifice size to that need. I prefer dots or grid, though at the moment I'm using a lined one because I like the color of the cover better than the colors I can get in dots or grid. I also have an 8.5x11 inch calendar, and, this term, a large binder in which I put all my class notes, collected papers and quizzes (we're doing a lot of in-class writing, and I provide pre-punched paper), handouts, and so on. I love this system and wish I'd thought of it years ago, as it corrals everything so tidily.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- swim x2 or x3, cardio x3, weights x2, yoga x5: YES (can swim x3 make up for being a little short on the yoga?)
- at least 3 writing sessions: NO. I thought I might manage one today, finally, but no (it feels like I spent all day cooking, but if I don't cook, I don't eat, so there we are). No writing all week.
- grade grad quizzes, comment on undergrad in-class writing: NO (I need to make up an alternative quiz for 2 students, so might as well delay that task, and I let the undergrads keep their in-class work to start work on an essay)
- read another essay submission: NO
- do Saturday loooong workshop thingy: YES. OMG that was a lot. I went to bed at 9, hours before I usually do.
- assorted appointments (eyes, PT, other): YES (and ordered new glasses frames)
- remember to be in all the right places at the right times! YES. Thank Cat.
ALSO: reviewed grad student's plans for exams; some prep for another workshop;
New goals:
- swim x2 or x3, cardio x3, weights x2, yoga x5
- at least 3 writing sessions
- grade grad quizzes, comment on undergrad in-class writing, prep for grad class
- read another essay submission
- read files for committee work
I think I'll leave it at that. I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I hope it's just things that are on my mind that will proceed without me, like having our driveway replaced, or that will happen whether I'm prepared or not, like some meetings.
Ooh, I like the idea of a binder for teaching. I may investigate that option next year. It would help with my perennial fear that I will turn up to class with the wrong notes.
DeleteClass binders are great! I have too many labs to keep bunders so switched to folders. Each class has a concertina folder, inside that I keep yellow for things to mark, green for marked things to hand back, and blue for future things that are prepped.
DeleteI used to have separate folders for each class but now the binder has both classes (I invert the binder, so each class is at the "front" depending on how you hold it; this only works if you have exactly two classes!). I love not having to think "is this the right folder?" and instead just picking up The Binder and being ready to go!
DeleteOMG the inverting binder is genius!!
DeleteNotebooks: I have many, but am very chaotic about them. I don't really have a research notebook like Julie's -- I mostly use them to take notes in seminars and conference papers. Then, because I have so many notebooks, I forget what's in which, and I never look at the notes again. (I bought a few of the notebooks, others were swag at conferences.) For references, I use Zotero and put lots of tags on things so I can find them later depending on what direction my work goes in. I also tag them for classes so when I'm preparing I can find things.
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
1. Get new chair for conference session where chair can't come NOT YET (STARTED)
2. Organize a bunch of talks and events for our graduate program NO
3. Draft one paragraph on the research of a colleague for a merit review YES
4. Deal with all the admin stuff which is coming at me very fast right now. I THINK SO
5. Empty two boxes. Get stuff I've organized to the various sales they need to go to. (There's a large bag of shoes for goodwill, other stuff for the cat rescue yard sale.) ONE BOX, DELIVERED FO R THE CAT RESCUE YARD SALE
6. Submit expenses for summer TOMORROW before they make us use the crappy online system ourselves starting Wednesday. YES
7. Do fun stuff this weekend DInner with a friend
AND ALSO: I got more edits back on Famous Author, so I spent most of the weekend going through that, but it's DONE.
Limited goals for this week because right now I have a stomach bug and will be doing the minimum. (Cancelled class today, may teach on zoom tomorrow.)
1. Find chair for session
2. Organize a couple of talks
3. Prepare for workgroup meeting on Wednesday
4. Return to exercise when I return to health
5. Figure out how to get microfilms on Interlibrary Loan.
6. Have fun trip to winery on Friday
I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, but...
Hope you are over the stomach bug soon, and definitely before the trip to the winery! And congrats on getting the edits to Famous Author done!
DeleteSending healing vibes - didn't St Paul say "take a little wine for thy stomach's sake"?
DeleteHope winery trip is great! Celebrate getting edits done!
DeleteLove notebooks… I buy them, collect them, look at them, and do not use them enough! I usually buy them as souvenir items at museums or galleries. I’ve had great success with the “everything notebook” approach (thanks to Raul Pacheco-Vega, still one of the most helpful “how-to-academic” writers out there) so I tend to stick with that. I always have to overcome a certain reluctance to start writing in a pristine, pretty new notebook (totally illogical, but real) so there is always an adjustment period, but once that is over anything/everything goes in there. I do my calendars electronically (colour-coded for work/kid/music) and on the fridge for family. For research mapping or scribbling I like larger pages better so I use scrap paper and full-size writing paper.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals
Clear up all adminstrivial things I ignored the last two weeks while registration was in full swing. DONE
Organize student project meetings and tasks DONE
Organize my writing tasks so I can pick something to work on each day POORLY DONE
Organize my schedule so I have some time blocks to write DONE
Pick one block and write! (if only it was that easy…) GOOD ATTEMPT, PARTLY DONE I GUESS…
This week’s goals
Review
Write outline for upcoming talk
Write one section of talk as paper section
Field work with student on weekend
Major committee stuff - internal
Major committee stuff – two sets external
Write web posts
All done, even if "poorly"!
DeleteI do also have a drawer full of too nice to use yet notebooks waiting for the perfect moment. A notebook is such a nice thing to buy for oneself - it feels useful and necessary in a way that many small but delightful purchases don't. Even if it just goes in a drawer or on a shelf, to be full of potential.
DeleteThere's a meme going around about the difference between a bookworm, who consumes books, and a bookwyrm who hoards them, and I definitely hoard my nice notebooks!
A lot of 'done'. Partly and good attempt all count!
DeleteIt's already Wednesday night, so I'm skipping the prompt (I also need to go to bed), even though it interests me! Will read your responses later.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Get through Very Fancy University event. --It was fun!
2. Proofs & index of 50 pages of book. --Yes!
3. Read 35 pages of Italian. --Yes!
4. Read grad student's chapter. --Yes!
5. Exercise at least 4 times. (It's a busy week with many inconvenient meetings that will require me to be creative about my workout schedule....)--Barely!
This week:
1. Catch up on emails in all three accounts
2. Write letters of recommendation
3. At least *start* reading (other) grad student's dissertation
4. Finish preliminary round of proofs and indexing
5. Get on top of various life things (call Mom, pay bills, that sort of stuff)
6. Exercise at least 5 times--Friday is optional
Great to hear you had fun at Fancy University Event! And well done on all the YES from last week---as Julie said to Daisy, "barely" counts!
DeleteCongrats on proofs and fancy event! So glad that was fun!
DeleteSounds like a very productive week!
Delete