Last week's goals:
allan wilson
(from 2 weeks ago, nature intervening!)
1. Reduce second helpings at dinner which have nothing to do with the fact that I am hungry.
2. Use appropriate coping strategies, not eating. Eg, walking, or resting.
3. Have a go at finishing FS.
Contingent Cassandra:
--move more (walk and/or weights)
--rest as possible (the week after Thanksgiving is absolutely packed, and will be exhausting)
--do my best to enjoy a family Thanksgiving that will have some sad/awkward elements (first without Dad; ongoing family tensions)
--cook (at least the pesto; maybe some soup?)
--work on other contacts with friends/family
--work on setting up meeting for grant project
--do some long-form reading (leisure/novel, Bible, both)
Daisy (from 2 weeks ago)
1) Complete draft of Hills paper
2) Complete outline of Cold Area paper to collaborators
3) List of figures and data plots needed for Cold Area paper
3) List of figures and data plots needed for Cold Area paper
Dame Eleanor Hull
1. Self-care: sit 5x, 3 yoga classes, basic stretching 4x, weights 3x, cardio or walking 5x, keep up good work on food/tracking.
2. Teaching: write final exams.
3. Research: finish R&R, send e-mails.
4. House/Life: restore study furniture, 2 hrs basement
Earnest English
Mental Health: Stretch, plan, make key phone calls on Wednesday
Gardening: fall clean up as promised, get garlic in the ground, put beds to sleep
Writing: work in the morning; read
Health: sleep, rest, relax, take supplements, eat well, make sure to bring and eat lunch.
Cooking: Thanksgiving!
Planning: Keep checking in on my goals
Spirited!: Connect and be here now.
Work: grade 5 projects per day, preferably in the morning on days not going to work
Elizabeth Ann Mitchell
Prepare for being out on jury duty--which may be one day or a month.
Write 250 words on Prudence x 6.
Declutter the work space ½ hour x 5.
Cook on Wednesday what can be done ahead of time.
Relax on Thursday, enjoy Number 1 and 2 sons’ company.
Good Enough Woman (Yay for date on viva!)
1) Get some grading done so that the week after T-Giving isn't a nightmare (presentation grades plus one set of essays *at least*).
2) Review chapter one to plan basic cuts for conversion into an article.
3) Exercise 3x.
4) Move like water with in-laws.
5) Make Christmas lists.
Humming42
1 30 minutes recherce 7x
2 30 minutes reading 7x
3 finish reading book for book review 1
4 make substantial progress on R&R
JaneB
This week's goals:
1) contact the editors of the three papers I need to referee, let them know I've been ill, do one
2) write the Annual Report for Old Admin Job (about 35 pages of bureaucratise. There are bits that can be cannabalised, but it takes energy)
3) finish up paperwork related to external examining
4) write one more week of the new statistics teaching 5) declutter house to some degree
6) eat well, exercise, sleep a lot, put self first
7) keep up with NaNoWriMo, go to meetup
And for a later date:
8) make eye care appointment (don't think opticians like being coughed at from close quarters)
9) work through another revise and resubmit (we have until mid-December)
10) write one section and edit all sections of a grant, so it can go off to internal referees
11) draft my bits of the second Problem Child part one paper
12) comment in detail on last of the close to submission manuscripts
13) worry about December travel, conference talk writing etc.
Karen
Assessment is done, we are shifting into summer. Ongoing emotional fallout. Demanding postgraduates (or needing to chase the ones who should be demanding).
1. Write x3. Even if it is crap. Just get going.
2. Move. Find one way each day to do that.
3. Focus. Make inroads into the big list by choosing one thing at a time.
KJ Haxton
1. more progress on literature review project, particularly looking for studies that could be used in a meta analysis of findings.
2. finish prep for outreach event on Saturday
3. hand crafted items - must finish the advent calendar thing I bought last year and haven't sewn up yet.
4. data processing of research tools from house and scary project
5. write the letters that I've been meaning to write.
Susan
1. Start working on proofs as soon as they arrive (Wednesday). Do at least one chapter a day.
2. Keep exercising
3. Eat sanely (will be easier because we're not hosting the food fest, and the food fest will center foods I don't particularly like)
4. Read another book.
Waffles
work on revision of NIH application
How I did: basically a lot of NO, this week. Something I should not have eaten hit hard (before Thanksgiving! it wasn't overindulgence then!) which led to very poor sleep for 3-4 nights, leading in turn to a lot of "can't even" and "so not." When I long to curl up in a ball with a hot water bottle, stretching and yoga feel impossible even if they might help. One thing I did get done, though, was my overdue annual eye appointment---so, thanks for the reminder, JaneB! And like GEW, I got in the same day I called, so that was very nice.
ReplyDelete1. Self-care: sit 5x, 3 yoga classes, basic stretching 4x, weights 3x, cardio or walking 5x, keep up good work on food/tracking. Weights & cardio/walking YES, tracking YES.
2. Teaching: write final exams. NO
3. Research: finish R&R, send e-mails. NO
4. House/Life: restore study furniture, 2 hrs basement. NO
I'm glad to draw a line under this week and start over. I did do some staring at the R&R, so I am at least still in touch with it, and I'm pretty sure my 2-hour meeting isn't happening tomorrow, so that opens up extra time I can use. But I think my goals are just going to be last week's over again. Plus bills. I need to do a lot of sorting/filing, but I think it needs to wait till after classes are over.
Next goals:
1. Self-care: sit 5x, 2 yoga classes, basic stretching 4x, weights 3x, cardio or walking 5x, keep up good work on food/tracking.
2. Teaching: write final exams.
3. Research: finish R&R, send e-mails.
4. House/Life: restore study furniture, 2 hrs basement, pay bills.
Topic: there are a lot of things that I do for others, perhaps oddly for someone who professes extreme introversion! Taking care of my physical self means that I have the energy to be a good partner, to teach, to do other aspects of my job, so while health is my highest priority, it's not only for me. Fun reading is all for me. Working on foreign languages is intellectually satisfying for me but also either brings me into contact with others or prepares me to do so. It's not surprising, really. People are social animals. Probably I only identify as so introverted because teaching uses up my people-energy. When I retire I will have to put more effort into finding social contacts and opportunities (but I think I said that last week).
Good luck to everyone heading into the home stretch of the semester! And to everyone else, whatever you're heading into!
I keep doing a little cheerleading chant in my head: "Two more weeks! Two more weeks!" On the downhill roll for the Fall semester.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear you had a bad food incident, especially one that interfered with other pleasures.
I always prioritize doing things for my mentor above the stuff I am doing for me. I'm lucky that her admin roles take up the bulk of her time - if she were 100% research, I'd likely never get my own work done bc whenever she has a research day, I spend much of that helping her. Mostly I don't mind because I adore her and I learn things - but sometimes (as I've mentioned before), some tasks could clearly be done by one of her assistants and maybe it would be better for them to do so. I am not doing anything about this though, for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeleteLast week's goal:
Work on NIH revision - IN PROGRESS!
This week's goal
Work on NIH revision
We talked with my program officer last week, which was disappointing as they clearly hadn't read my app and didn't have it in front of them to reference it. So, their feedback was general and not particularly helpful (big feedback was "You need to improve your score" - oh, you don't say!). So, I'm a little worried that we are making decisions that may not actually be the best.
Well, it sounds as if -- as is often the case -- the things you do for your mentor also often help you.
DeleteTopic:
ReplyDeleteThis question shouldn’t be so confounding for me, and it is only because I manipulate how I think about things in order to get them done. Grading and class prep is something I think of as doing for myself, because I’m doing it to get it done and because I want to be a decent, responsible professor. If I think of it in service of my students, I don’t care as much, because some constructs of this scheme make me feel resentful that I spend a lot of time doing things that many of them find utterly uninteresting.
Last week:
1 30 minutes recherce 7x: 5x since Monday was impossible and another day I just didn’t get there
2 30 minutes reading 7x: yes, and it’s a real pleasure
3 finish reading book for book review 1: yes
4 make substantial progress on R&R: progress, but not substantial. Now TRQ.
Week ahead:
1 finish the TRQ revision
2 30 minutes recherce 6x
3 30 minutes reading 7x
4 start drafting book review 1
Reading and writing for the revise & resubmit will fill up about half of those 30 minute blocks, so I feel like I’m cheating on my goals. I’m trying to remember that I’m working on developing a habitual everyday practice and what I get done doesn’t matter as much as the doing.
I love that way of thinking about grading. Will have to try that!
DeletePractice: yes. The doing matters.
Oh eff oh eff oh eff oh gee (might as well progress in the alphabet if in no other way) IT'S NEARLY DECEMBER! How did that happen??
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I love most about doing NaNo is that it is entirely, totally, completely FOR ME. Everything at work is for someone else, it feels like - it's for the department for colleagues for collaborators for students for the REF for meeting metrics for the principle of the thing or whatever. It's all obligations and lateness. Even the things without deadlines like most TLQ have metrics and annual reports and all that guff. Work feels very take take take. Even the pleasure I find, and I DO find pleasure in work, is mostly about outward looking stuff, about saying things well or having a good class. The system as set up, and the rhetoric in the UK and within my department, is very much against the satisfaction of Slow Thinking and curiosity driven research, it's all about measurables. And I'm bad at that.
And yeah, I also have Issues - a lot of my food problems (the eating too much of it or things I know I shouldn't if I want to feel well) are about other people and other things. I know this. I hide behind being a fat and therefore relatively invisible woman from people and people stuff, I eat as rebellion against all the shoulds and musts and judgement of weak willed ness, I eat to shut up the hurts inflicted by people and interacting with them. And because stuff tastes good, but most of it isn't anything to do with hunger or pleasure, it's all about other rubbish. Doing things for other people, or doing things other people don't want you to do (whether that's eating something "bad" or working on an article when you "should" be applying for more grants, it's the same thing in many ways). Grumble sulk. yes, this topic puts the hammer right on top of the nail.
last week's goals
1) contact the editors of the three papers I need to referee, let them know I've been ill, do one YES!
2) write the Annual Report for Old Admin Job (about 35 pages of bureaucratise. There are bits that can be cannabalised, but it takes energy) no. I have so many feels about this and I have only so much energy for work
3) finish up paperwork related to external examining yes
4) write one more week of the new statistics teaching drafted out, just needs turning into a step by step guide
5) declutter house to some degree well SORT of. Cleaned the stove, cleared and properly cleaned about two square feet of counter space (white counter, pig to clean). It makes everywhere else look crap (more crap)
6) eat well, exercise, sleep a lot, put self first not enough
7) keep up with NaNoWriMo, go to meetup yes to the first, and sort of to the second - I had a job getting myself to leave the house and then I couldn't park. And only one other person actually made it. But at least I didn't leave him hanging, and we wrote some words, and we decided that we'd definitely like to be eighteenth or nineteenth century clergy of the kind who spent most of their time running Antiquarian or Natural History Societies. But then I had to have a nap, which really threw off my grading, which is already in chaos.
Analysis: I've nearly stopped coughing! And my voice is reliable, although uncomfortable and sounding a bit off still. I went to work in the office for two days, and survived (although both were more draining than usual), and went to counselling and managed to keep my voice through that too. But I have not been doing great at the grading... too much else in need of attention and too little motivation.
this coming week:
DeleteHmm. Mixed. I've had to arrange cover for my classes on Monday as I have a hospital appointment (minor thing) and there's no telling how long it could go on for. Stressed about it because "they" are digging up the road nearby and the traffic is terrible in the morning, and because it's an early appointment I plan to drive in because, mornings (I am doing SO badly at mornings right now, stupid health issues, stupid sleep issues), anxiety, stomach issues, public transport panics, general total wimpishness. Which means an early start. Which is of course why I'm writing this post midnight (long nap after meet-up...). Then three days at the office (with classes AND meetings, joys!). Big pile of very slow grading to complete by Thursday and several other smaller pieces, plus teaching prep and getting-my-life-back-in-order-after-being-sick and not overdoing it. Sigh.
that said, goals:
1) referee second paper
2) spend an hour on the Annual Report for Old Admin Job (about 35 pages of bureaucratise. There are bits that can be cannabalised, but it takes energy)
3) grading
4) finish writing last week of the new statistics teaching
5) declutter house a little more
6) spend a couple of hours on Christmas stuff (wrapping parcels to mail, cards)
7) eat well, exercise, sleep a lot, put self first
8) write every day to end of NaNoWriMo
9) plan out December travel, conference talk writing etc.
And for a later date:
10) make eye care appointment (don't think opticians like being coughed at from close quarters)
11) work through another revise and resubmit (we have until mid-December)
12) write one section and edit all sections of a grant, so it can go off to internal referees
13) draft my bits of the second Problem Child part one paper
14) comment in detail on last of the close to submission manuscripts
Your 18th- or 19t-c clergy fantasy life sounds a lot like my wish to be a gentleman-scholar of the same period, spending my days polishing my translation of obscure Roman poets!
DeleteIt might be time for an early application of What Now's February mantra of "suck less." By that standard (and considering everything else going on), you did a good job of the cleaning!
I'm admiring anyone who did any cleaning because I need to look for a photocopy I made in summer 2015 (I wrote in my research journal that I copied it!) but didn't scan. I do not know where it is. It might be faster to ILL the book again.
Topic: oddly, I have trouble drawing a clear line between the "for others" and "for me" goals. The whole eating well/sleeping enough/exercising/household and finance-organizing parts are definitely for me, as is the (mostly unachieved) goal to do more long-form reading. So I guess I've got a pretty high percentage of "for me" goals. The grant project is definitely a combination: it satisfies some of my needs (for professional community, for some sense of a career trajectory rather than a dead end or hamster wheel or whatever it is I've got) while also, I hope, making things better for my colleagues as well. Keeping in better touch with family and friends is also a mix: I certainly hope that I can be a support to those people, but, as a single person living alone who is not going to have children of her own, I also feel the need to cultivate other connections, in both the short and the long term.
ReplyDeleteMost of my TRQ stuff is teaching-related, which I view as a combination of for others and for self -- on the simplest level, I'm trying to support my students' learning, but of course I also want/need to keep my job, and, like humming42, I tend to feel better when I'm reasonably on top of things like grading and prep (and really lousy in a low-grade stressed kind of way when I fall behind, as I did toward the beginning of this term).
So I don't know. Maybe I actually have a reasonable balance?
Oh -- and count me in as another aspiring 18th/19th-century clergyman (person?), especially if I can add a good bit of tramping to the mix (and a housekeeper or pub landlord who offers dry clothes and a hot meal at the end). Of course, I'd like to import a few C20 amenities, such as gender equality and antibiotics.
Last week's goals/achieved:
--move more (walk and/or weights)just a bit of own-weight calisthenics
--rest as possible (the week after Thanksgiving is absolutely packed, and will be exhausting)pretty good success
--do my best to enjoy a family Thanksgiving that will have some sad/awkward elements (first without Dad; ongoing family tensions) generally went well, give or take retrospective worry about family tensions
--cook (at least the pesto; maybe some soup?)made some pesto; haven't exhausted parsley supply yet
--work on other contacts with friends/familya few; need to do more
--work on setting up meeting for grant projectbegan work; need to finish
--do some long-form reading (leisure/novel, Bible, both)just a bit
Goals for the coming week (a very heavy conferencing week, so goals are necessarily modest):
Delete--find some way to move a bit between conferences (short walks, calisthenics, etc.)
--get as close to a full night's sleep as possible each night (the key to this is coming home directly after the last conference, even if I still have things to do)
--fit in additional family/friend contact as possible
--make the rest of the parsley into pesto
--set up meeting for grant project
--finish novel I began; get back on track with Bible reading
I disappeared last week... All better now!
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1) Complete draft of Hills paper NOT EVEN CLOSE
2) Complete outline of Cold Area paper to collaborators DONE
3) List of figures and data plots needed for Cold Area paper DONE
The week was pretty much a write-off, thanks to major grading deadlines and a huge administrative scandal/shake-up at my uni. Hours and hours of conversations and speculation and commiseration, and yes, filling out job applications... Just in case... Long shots all, but just in case...
This week's goals:
1) Hills Paper, AGAIN!
2) Cold Paper, complete data section
Looks modest when you write them like that but really they are huge! I have to remember that...
Topic: Who is it for?
I loved reading about communities last week, and in response to this week's question I can think of three categories of community that are central for me that need different levels of "work" done for them.
Family: needs huge work, don't really provide "support" for my writing or research, but that's not their job, so all good there :)
Writing/research friends from IRL writing group: need very little "work", everyone brings mental support and encouragement to the group, but all I have to do is schedule things and look after timers (apparently I'm the tough organized one that keeps things on track, hahaha). This is a crucial one for regular accountability and inspiration. For all of us we get out a ton of mental support, even though actual writing help is not a thing for us, being in vastly different fields (e.g. I should never offer advice on someone's auto-ethnography :)
External community, including TLQ group: researchers and conference buddies and association people who only need occasional care and feeding because they are all doing their own things, but are generally available for being sounding boards and great discussion sources. God for drop-in sessions too.
I think in two out of the three the above communities I can focus on my writing. I do not include colleagues or students here, because they take much more work than the benefits they provide... Not that I don't love them, but you know... :)
Two huge goals seems plenty for a week! I agree that some forms of community take more work than benefits created :)
DeleteI'm struggling with this topic because I have a very strong sense of obligation and duty. I'm working from home at the moment and am wondering why. Is it because I need stuff to keep me busy whilst sick or is it because I don't want to let people at work down by heaping more on them? Probably a bit of both but keeping busy is good for me. Under normal circumstances, TLQ that involves other people definitely takes priority. In the last week I knitted my hats because they are for charity and need to be done in early December rather than my advent calendar which is just for me.
ReplyDeleteLast week
1. more progress on literature review project, particularly looking for studies that could be used in a meta analysis of findings. - done
2. finish prep for outreach event on Saturday - done and event ran well
3. hand crafted items - must finish the advent calendar thing I bought last year and haven't sewn up yet. - haven't done the calendar but more hats
4. data processing of research tools from house and scary project - data processing for house done
5. write the letters that I've been meaning to write. - nope
This week (it's a chemo week so TRQ dominates)
1. mark distance learning course assignments
2. create sample work for distance learning course assignments
3. mark 1st year information retrieval exercises
4. respond to distance learning student emails
5. hand crafted items
6. get out for a walk every day, building up to 3 miles by end of week.
Sending you good, supportive thoughts!
DeleteWell, I think many of us do things for both ourselves and others -- so I understand your mixed motives!
DeleteGood luck with this week's chemo.
Sending you positive thoughts.
DeleteSo, when I wrote the question, I thought I knew the answer for myself, but it's become progressively more complicated. This is partly because I realized that the things I do for others make me feel better. So is it really for others? At the same time, I find myself with a lot of family expectations that no one really asked me about. And I would mostly choose them, but maybe not all... There is very little I do that is -- like JaneB's NANO -- just for me. I'm trying to say that I'll only take on writing projects that serve my goals, and I think that's true. But other stuff? Well, it's all mixed up.
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
1. Start working on proofs as soon as they arrive (Wednesday). Do at least one chapter a day. YES (DIDN'T START ON TIME, but caught up)
2. Keep exercising NOT REALLY. And now I'm sick.
3. Eat sanely (will be easier because we're not hosting the food fest, and the food fest will center foods I don't particularly like) MEH. Not really.
4. Read another book. NO
Analysis: There was stress, and so . . . And I love my brother and SIL (and the 3 yr old niece and nephew) but it was exhausting and family issues that are complicated. And I was tired starting out.
The most important thing -- TRQ really -- is the proofs.
Goals for next week:
1. Finish proofs. Have draft of index before I check in next Monday.
2. Get healthy. (Yes, it's just a cold. Right now I feel like death warmed over.)
3. Sleep. Start exercising slowly
4. Start reading
And the more I think of it, the more I think it's a problem that I don't give as much importance if it's "just" for me. Typical female issue...
DeleteYes, this! I prefer to spend time on stuff that benefits a larger number of folk, just for me makes me feel selfish. That being said, we can't help others if we don't address what we need...
DeleteLike Susan, one of my markers of the 'just for me' is that it is something I feel comfortable with putting off. But then I do have moments of organising to do things I want to do in collaboration with others, and times when for others is not important for me so it gets dropped.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
Got through memorial service for colleague and the urgent set of postgraduate applications.
1. Write x3. Even if it is crap. Just get going. NOPE
2. Move. Find one way each day to do that. ISH- if you count walking around the house
3. Focus. Make inroads into the big list by choosing one thing at a time. A BIT
This week:
Am really hoping to get through a couple of days without a crisis de jour, though I may be delusional there. I've booked half a day off tomorrow to go see a child's school event and plant out summer vegetable garden. Then I'm stuck with a planning day as a proxy - so need to be realistic about available time.
1. Write x 2 - 25 minutes as a start.
2. Move - try a new yoga class (Thursday night or Sunday)
3. Make the Christmas presents list
4. Decide and write down where I need preparation for next year to be before going on leave. Then plan backwards and consider delegation.
Planting out the summer veg garden sounds wonderful. I hope you have a few days of peace.
DeleteTopic: Interestingly enough, the TLQ tasks I talk about in this group are for me, without obligation to anyone else. That has not been the case until tenure, since I had to write articles that weren’t very interesting to me in order to tick all the boxes with my college. While my colleagues were aware of my interest in “rare books,” which is how they internalized my medieval studies interests, it is not part of my everyday work, and thus was easily explained as a personal eccentricity.
ReplyDeleteThe remaining TLQ work is for others, but I rarely include it here. Staff evaluations and recommendations, the ongoing writing of policies and procedures, editing colleagues’ articles, are TLQ, but I get them done without external accountability, because they are for others. Wow, that was a light bulb moment.
I just proved to myself that I put the things I do for others first. And here I was, convinced that I was being selfish. Yesterday morning, I went to work early to write this comment and to work on Prudence. Two hours later, I realized I had not begun to write this comment, or to work on Prudence, but had spent the morning going through all the questions and requests from Monday when I was on jury duty.
Last week’s goals:
Prepare for being out on jury duty--which may be one day or a month. Yes, and thankfully, it was only one day.
Write 250 words on Prudence x 6. Nope
Declutter the work space ½ hour x 5. Three times
Cook on Wednesday what can be done ahead of time.Yes
Relax on Thursday, enjoy Number 1 and 2 sons’ company.Yes
Analysis: The short work week was manic. Several students (I assume graduate students) asked for rush items to be cataloged on Tuesday and Wednesday, when we were short staffed. I suppose they thought they were going to study over the holiday weekend? We had also changed to a new ebook platform on Monday, which was making students create accounts, which they understandably didn’t want to do (“I’m a student here, isn’t that enough?”), so we had a bit of a ruckus going on about that. Great timing, publisher--thank you, NOT!
Thanksgiving Day went reasonably well, although I ate too much, and suffered for it. I know some things make me sick, but I keep hoping that just “a little bit” won’t hurt, to find that I am wrong. On the good side, I spent several days in sinful luxury, reading by the fireplace with all the denizens of Testosterone Palace waiting on me, and a poodle warmly snuggling next to me.
Next week’s goals:
Make remaining three doctors’ appointments
Spend half-hour per day on the 2017 planner (this has goal setting and journaling rolled into it)
Declutter the work space half-hour x 3
Write SOMETHING for fifteen minutes x 7
Move like water, everyone!
Yes, it was kind of a light bulb for me, too. But the idea of reading in front of a fire with others meeting my needs almost makes eating the wrong things worth it.
DeleteSo true, Susan. It was an object lesson in gratitude, and gave more depth to being grateful.
Delete