I enjoyed reading through the discussions last week of the highs and lows, and I must admit that I pretty much ditched my to-do list mid-week in favour of more rest. Time off is a good thing and many of us have had spring break already, with Easter vacations of various start and end dates also looming large. And it occurs to me that at the end of a long spell of busy, there is as much need of active replenishment as there is of passive. It's one thing to say to rest, a fairly passive process, but the process of suddenly stopping after running around doing all the things can be difficult. I often joke that term-time is like filling a Pandora's box with all the crap we don't have time or energy to deal with, and the first week of vacation time is unpacking the box. I suddenly find myself getting cross about things that happened ages ago that I barely recalled. So this week, what are your suggestions to get into a more restful mindset for a period of time (an hour, a day, a week...) and how do your attempts at 'rest' differ from more active means of relaxation? And what's the best balance for you?
Contingent Cassandra (from 12)
--work on taxes (get as close to finished as possible, since the next few weeks will be busy)
--finish listing to-dos for one section
--move: walk, lift weights, and garden, at least 1x and preferably 2x each.
--participate a bit more in pedagogy project related class (maybe just some blog comments)
--write letter re: promotion to dept chair
--make progress on annual report
Daisy
1) Finish results and discussion for paper above, add figures for results section
2) Plan next week's analytical time carefully
3) Pick one other paper and figure out next steps
4) Run outside at least twice
1. House: make two rooms presentable.
2. Research: 15 minutes x 3 days, plus one session of two hours, on each of two projects.
3. Teaching: 3 sets of assignments, plus two small sets of revisions.
4. Health: continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely, go to bed early, add walking on non-gym days, now that I have good walking shoes.
5. Fun/social: track restorative activities to make sure I do them regularly. Consider whether Wednesday gathering is worth staying up late for.
-Grounding: get adequate sleep! Eat well. Active self-repair on stressful days: baths, music. Meditate or stretching twice this week.
-Spirited: therapy and hanging out
-Gardening: start tomato and other seeds, look for or order peas, figure out salad bowls
-NaPoWriMo: go for it!
-Plan and Plod: get back to Dreambook by end of week
-Scholarship: read and take notes on one piece of scholarship/one chapter of a book
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Survive two more days of interviews.
Meet with staff about evaluations.
Begin blind review of article.
Write up research notes.
Continue Latin transcription and translation.
Do version control on the iterations of the book and correct filenames across cloud storage and hard drives.
Good Enough Woman
1) Exercise 3x. And throw in something different: Either take out the SUP, do laps at my college pool (which I've never done!), or go to a yoga class.
2) Pay bills.
3) Do most of grading (could leave half a stack for early next week if necessary).
4) Finish the article and submit it unless this means no days off. If I can't finish by Tuesday or Wednesday (and I'm not sure I can) I want to put off the submission.
5) See doctor on Wed and have lunch with friend.
6) Preserve Thursday and Friday for exercise and relaxation (pleasure reading, mostly . . . also maybe sushi for lunch one day).
heu mihi
1. Read some primary sources
2. Draft Berks (5 pp.)
3. Preliminary prep for guest class (4/11)
Humming42 (from 12)
1. Read 5x
2. Write 5x
3. make notes while reading
4. use morning writing to brainstorm projects
JaneB
1) prepare one statistics class, one workshop
2) prepare information packs for four field destinations
3) make sure all lists are made and orders submitted for supplies etc. for the field day
4) grade first year assignment
5) comment on drafts of second year assignment
6) pull together readings for Picky paper
7) use internal review comments to rewrite GrantINEverShouldHaveStarted, finish internal paperwork. Maybe start progress towards submission???
8) resist sugar, avoid bread
9) get sleep pattern back to something sensible (have had a very jet-lag-inducing weekend...)
Karen
-reconnect with postgrad students
-get ahead by one week on online unit during business hours not evenings. Use evenings for sleeping.
-work through email consciously for designated periods each day and turn off outside those times.
-get to yoga x 1
-attend Friday writing group
KJHaxton
1. collaborative paper - finish my edits and make a decision on the ethics bit
2. poster for conference - finish
3. marking marking marking - finish
Susan
1. Finish way outside
2. Walk twice
3. Read at bedtime.
Waffles
1. Make significant headway on mixed methods paper (it’s due 4.15, so this has to be the bulk of my effort this week)
2. Write a brief proposal for grant app
Topic: I meditate at night, so that I can force myself away from the screen or the page for a decent period before sleep. I journal in the morning, capturing what bits of dreams I remember, working through whatever emotions come up at the time. These are the only times I can stop feeling that I should be doing something, and rest completely. Relaxation for me is reading, knitting, and writing things that take more active thought than the early morning journaling. I used to walk and swim daily, and would like to return to those more active forms of relaxation. I’ve even contemplated learning how to snowshoe, given where I live.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest thing for me is to turn off the Rolodex (that dates me, I know) in my brain, which whirls happily, scrolling through everything I need to do and have not yet done. Meditation helps turn it off at night so I can get to sleep, but if I wake in the night, the Rolodex starts twirling again.
Last week’s goals:
Two more days of interviews. Survived, but not enjoyed
Meet with staff about evaluations Done
Begin blind review of article Nope
Write up research notes Through half of them
Continue Latin transcription and translation Nope
Do version control on the iterations of the book and correct filenames across cloud storage and hard drives Yes for cloud storage, no for hard drives
How I did:
The blind review and the transcription didn’t get done because I made the mistake of planning to do them during breaks at work, which vanished like fog in sunlight. I didn't get away from my desk for lunch or coffee, much less writing. I will carve out more of my "before work morning" to dedicate to the blind review, which is swiftly becoming TRQ, as well as the transcription.
The good side to working a 40+ hour week is that I met with my staff for their evaluations, had nice conversations with each of them, and discovered the surface of my desk for the first time since I came back from medical leave. The interview days were still long and awkward, especially when my internal candidate colleague wanted to indulge in a heart-to-heart about the other candidates. There is an old Appalachian mountain saying about not having fallen off the turnip truck yesterday, which I kept in mind. Thus, I managed to let her talk for more than an hour without betraying any thoughts of my own.
I’m surprised that in the midst of a stressful week like the last, I am finding an abundance of things I want to blog about, after months of having not one, but two, moribund blogs. I am swept away by research ideas that I want to explore as well. Not having time to draft anything, I have been packing these ideas into blog drafts or making lists of things to pursue. I have even begun to revise drafts that have been languishing for months.
Next week’s goals:
Plan for the next day every afternoon, list tasks in priority order and post prominently on computer monitor
Two more days of interviews (sigh)
Plan birthday concelebration with Son Number Two
Finish blind review
More Latin (Is that like “More Cowbell?”)
Move like water, float like mist, everyone!
Plants flower when they're stressed. Or maybe your long time off work with the broken arm allowed some renewal.
DeleteSounds like you are starting to feel better. I'm not surprised that the ideas and energy weren't flowing when you were dealing with physical pain. Glad you are feeling more energized!
DeleteAnd I love the "vanished like a fog in sunlight" metaphor, especially because I live in a coastal (often foggy) town, so the image reflects what I see (and feel) on a regular basis.
I am also struck by the fact that the fog/sun image could be flipped ("like sunlight behind the fog").
DeleteI like the flip side of the sunlight behind the fog, GEW. I'm going to concentrate on that!
DeleteDEH, I suspect it is a bit of both. I thought and read a lot while off work, which helped fill the well, and retreat to creativity to avoid the stress of the return.
OOO, good topic! I'm at the start of two weeks of Not Going Into The Office, in which I intend to work only on TLQ stuff (although there WILL be some TRQ which interrupts, especially from my final year project students, most of whom are now starting to actually do the kind of work that needs my input... three weeks from the end of a year long project. GROAN). So far I've given myself two days off, napped a lot, & read forgettable stuff. Hay fever season has started, & I got quite fraught trying & failing to get through my essential to do list before this break period, & I haven't really had a day off intentionally since, oh, January maybe? I think I had one day recovering from travel in early March? So sleep deficit & doing-nothing deficits need to be addressed. I'm getting better at accepting that some days are completely unproductive & that's a reasonable thing (this weekend I read 1.5 mindcandy tomes, did a little work on my NaNoWriMo novel sequence, bought groceries & easter presents for family via the computer, & cleaned the cat litter tray, but that really was it!). Hopefully I'll start to find that a little boring over the next couple of days & things will get done...
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge gulf between what I actually do for transitions within the day to day & what I think would be the best thing to do. Some of that is because my sleep patterns are no longer what they were - I was a classic lark, but when I started with the current run of health problems about 10-15 years ago my biorhythms changed, & I now only really think well in the later evening most days (which is a mix of medications & the problems themselves, I think). Left to my own devices I go Mediterranean, sleeping about 5-6 hours at night from quite late, then about 3-4 hours in the afternoon - I've read that split sleep was much more common across Europe in earlier times, & that people taken away from social/light cues sleep like this, but it's not a pattern compatible with social norms here & now. The need to work a little most evenings to stay on top of my "day job" during the semester, & the sense of 'deserving' me time after a day of doing things I resent/feel imposed upon by/didn't plan which often involves electronics ('net reading & socialising, writing my own stuff, reading books on my kindle), mean I tend to be working with electronics after I eat. & then my brain starts to spin up into thinking-full-pelt mode at what should be pre-bedtime wind down time... either I take away the distraction & the brain-squirrel of anxiety takes over, or I keep fiddling with the distractions. The squirrel is sort of like Elizabeth's rolodex except that all the cards in a rolodex are on a spindle & therefore somewhat constrained, whereas if you've ever seen a squirrel in a cage... well, they go all over the place at massive speed in three dimensions at least, poor little critters.
I do much better at mindfulness in the morning, & usually fit in at least a few minutes of quality grounding myself then, but at night it's much harder.
My best aid in turning my mind away from work is pen & paper. Having a very clear place to park each work thought as it comes up helps hugely in stopping my brain obsessing with it & making 'dump lists' which include things I can & can't act on, for tomorrow or yesterday or a year in the future - is probably the closest thing to proper "clear your mind" meditation I do successfully at the moment. I try & dump out my brain at the end of the day, during the day if I feel the anxiety peaking & have a chance, & alongside my two-weekly "year of new years" lists on my own blog.
DeleteSome of those things go onto to do lists for the next day or week, or longer ahead (post-its in my diary, and pencil notes, again help my brain believe they will be dealt with). Some of them become prompts for free-writing (I don't do morning pages properly, usually I lack the time or the ability to actually get that organised - something I'd like to play with this summer - but I do free-write when I get antsy or something keeps coming up, or when I sit down to do 'proper writing' and get stuck). Some of them come to see my counsellor with me. Some of them just lose their power once written down a few times, and flitter away.
I am not doing a good job of resting - although I did binge watch a netflix series (13 reasons why) and listen to the whole S-town podcast last week, so I think I was trying to find a way to shut my brain off a bit. But I’ve had a great deal of trouble sleeping lately, mostly due to anxiety.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Make significant headway on mixed methods paper (it’s due 4.15, so this has to be the bulk of my effort this week) - IT’S GETTING THERE
2. Write a brief proposal for grant app - YEAH, NO
THIS WEEK:
1. Mixed methods paper and pretty much nothing else.
I realize that saying this undermines my anonymity somewhat, but I can't help but note that Jay Asher, author of "13 Reasons Why" attended the community college where I teach, as well as the nearby four-year university where I once worked and where I got my MA. Also, his dad worked at the post office and took my passport photo 10 years ago. I remember him telling me about how his son had a new book coming out. They could not have know what a phenomenon it would be. :) Local guy gets famous!
DeleteIn other Netflix news, I binged on "Big Little Lies" this week.
I hope you have good progress on the MM paper this week, with a manageable level of anxiety.
Okay - I had to look it up. I grew up not super far from you, and spent some time at SLO for math competitions! :)
DeleteI am really sad Big Little Lies is over - it leaves a big hole in my life. I've been listening to the opening credits song over and over and over!
I did a good job of making time for rest and relaxation this past week while I was on spring break. For the first few days, I was very productive, keeping up with daily to-do lists created each evening for the next day. But then, as I was making lists for Thursday and Friday, I remembered my TLQ goals, which focused on leisure for Thursday and Friday, so I chucked the schedule. For me, pleasure reading is my most restorative restful and "passive" activity. I'm amazed at how much better I feel when I've had "enough" time to read.
ReplyDelete1) Exercise 3x. And throw in something different: Either take out the SUP, do laps at my college pool (which I've never done!), or go to a yoga class. DONE. And I swam at my college pool. Too windy to take out the SUP. Realizing that I'm preferring home practice for yoga these days.
2) Pay bills. DONE.
3) Do most of grading (could leave half a stack for early next week if necessary). MOSTLY DONE. I left a whole stack, but I think I can still manage it in a timely way.
4) Finish the article and submit it unless this means no days off. If I can't finish by Tuesday or Wednesday (and I'm not sure I can) I want to put off the submission. DONE! Submitted on Tuesday afternoon. Kind of stressed about some potential submission missteps (I forgot to upload a title page, and I decided to forego listed preferred or non-preferred reviewers), but it's submitted.
5) See doctor on Wed and have lunch with friend.DONE.
6) Preserve Thursday and Friday for exercise and relaxation (pleasure reading, mostly . . . also maybe sushi for lunch one day).DONE!
It was a nicely balanced week, and I had a great time with the kids, too (my husband was away). Friday was especially amazing. After spending some time in the morning tidying up, making pizza dough, and doing a short at-home yoga session, I spend all day (until the kids got home from school) on the couch, under a blanket, alternately reading and napping, with my cat on my lap. I can't remember the last time I did that, and it was so good for my soul. When my son walked in the door after school, he looked at me (I was still on the couch), did a full assessment of my situation, and said, "Are you sick? Or are you happy?"
I was happy.
That is a beautiful last paragraph.
DeleteAgreed - my heart just lifted on that last line. Thanks GEW!
DeleteI made a quick post last week as I was leaving town for conference, but it seems to have not loaded. It was conference with built-in retreat, and while I enjoyed a day off, I didn’t do all the grading and service stuff I needed to. But I read every day, and even though I only wrote one day, I wrote a decent abstract for a special issue of a journal that I hope to have accepted.
ReplyDeleteBetween a leisurely spring break, conference break, and Easter holiday, I feel like I should be better able to answer what I do for rest. I do distraction far better than rest, because I have trouble letting go of the service and teaching responsibilities that circle around my head. Yet I am also that weird person who can fall asleep in three minutes (as previously noted here) and regularly sleep eight hours a night. In that regard, I get lots of good rest, and really can’t function on less than seven hours of sleep.
This week
1 Read 5x: Yes, 7x
2 Write 5x: No but 1x very good
3 make notes while reading: some
4 use morning writing to brainstorm projects: some
This week
1 Read 5x
2 Write 5x
3 finish abstract
4 get caught up on grading and service
Ah, letting go of responsibility -- yes, I share that challenge.
DeleteDuring the term resting is a low priority, but I find I get some enforced time away from work on most weekends because kid time takes priority. Spring break is always analytical time so that doesn't count as a break.
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1) Finish results and discussion for paper above, add figures for results section RESULTS YES, FIGURES NO
2) Plan next week's analytical time carefully YES
3) Pick one other paper and figure out next steps YES
4) Run outside at least twice YES
This week's goals:
The daytimes this week are all reserved for analytical time so I will only have a couple of TLQ goals.
1) Run outside 3 times
2) Continue on paper figures
How I did:
ReplyDelete1. House: make two rooms presentable. IN PROGRESS: packed 11 boxes of books and one of dishes . . . Progress is visible enough that I begin to believe this will really happen. Eventually.
2. Research: 15 minutes x 3 days, plus one session of two hours, on each of two projects. NOPE. On the one day I had a lot of time for research, I also had a debilitating backache.
3. Teaching: 3 sets of assignments, plus two small sets of revisions. About half of this.
4. Health: continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely, go to bed early, add walking on non-gym days, now that I have good walking shoes. YES. Well, I skipped a gym day to allow my back an extra day to recover, but that was a good thing.
5. Fun/social: track restorative activities to make sure I do them regularly. Consider whether Wednesday gathering is worth staying up late for. NOPE, dropped the ball here. Since Wednesday was the backache day, I went gratefully to bed at the earliest time I could manage.
New goals:
1. House. Just keep going.
2. Research: prep for presentation on campus; work on Zoo thing.
3. Teaching: catch up with grading; post reading questions.
4. Health: continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely, go to bed early, add walking on non-gym days, now that I have good walking shoes.
5. Fun/social thing: track restorative activities to make sure I do them regularly. Consider whether Wednesday gathering is worth staying up late for.
Topic: I think I prefer fairly passive/quiet forms of recreation, like reading. Coloring can be good. Sometimes cooking. Walking outside is certainly restorative. Gardening sometimes, but it's often hard on my back and hands, and also very frustrating as I keep trying to eradicate invasive species that are resistant to even heavy-duty weedkillers. I am good at stopping work in the evenings. On occasion I might do some work-related reading, but I don't do anything involving a screen after 8 p.m., and I try to do some winding-down activity, though sometimes that's just packing food for the next day. A hot bath before bed is a common rest-inducing activity for me; it helps reduce aches and pains. But with warmer weather coming on, that may go away as too likely to make me overheat. I can tell that interaction with other people in a social setting is good for me, which is why I've tried to make that more of a priority this session, but I don't look forward to it the way I do to a favorite book and a wallow in a hot bath.
ReplyDeleteTopic: In theory I love to read. But I find that reading for pleasure (as opposed to work reading, of which I do a fair bit) requires a sense of mental space that I don't have during the semester. I'm hoping that over the summer I regain my reading mojo. I walk -- not as much as I'd like, but I do -- and I've stopped putting on headphones so I'm just enjoying the world. I also have got back into the garden, which is great because it's useful, and focused, and physically challenging. Now that it's light in the evening, and not too hot, I'm going to try to do 15-20 minutes each day.
ReplyDeleteGoals last week:
1. Finish way outside NOT QUITE
2. Walk twice ONCE
3. Read at bedtime NO (see above)
Analysis: Like Humming42, I have trouble letting go of responsibilities,and a bunch of them have come together -- a search committee I chair has job candidates starting to come in, a curriculum revision (Gen Ed, for US colleagues) has hit a few bumps in the road, and lots of little things are coming together. All of this too time -- I spent half of Friday emailing about the schedule for the job candidate, for instance. As always, the end of the semester is crazy -- I have the sense of a train picking up speed as it heads down the mountain, right at me. I know I won't be run over, but not for want of trying!
Goals for this week:
1. Really finish Way Outside
2. Walk twice
3. Make hotel reservations for short trip to UK in May.
4. Get good sleep, and avoid twitter and fb right before bed.
Like you, I love to read but find that a good sign of how stressed I am is how little I am reading... breaks are definitely for catching up and refilling the reading well...
DeleteI've been actively being inactive for a fair bit of the last few days. For me, that's reading books, watching TV while knitting, napping (often with book in hand), and drinking lots of tea. I'm refusing to allow myself to believe that this is a 'waste of a good day' and I really need some down time. For active relaxation, I'll wait to go on holiday - walking in nice places, taking the camera out to shoot lovely pictures, visiting interesting places...all interspersed with active inaction and book reading. At home crafts fill that space - planning the next run of prints, or the next knitting project. Related to that, the bags I was making for Easter eggs were sold and raised over £100 for a charity so I'm pleased with that.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. collaborative paper - finish my edits and make a decision on the ethics bit
I've decided about the ethics, done some more data analysis and just about finished the edits
2. poster for conference - finish
got a good first draft, just fiddling with the space on the page and what goes where stuff.
3. marking marking marking - finish
I'm working on it. I've been limiting myself to a certain number of things per day rather than sprinting through tasks. Pacing seems important.
This week:
1. gentle progress through the TRQ to-do list that needs to be done before going on holiday.
2. start new knitting project (small hats but knit with multiple strands of wool to test various colour combinations before doing something bigger).
3. tidy up house.
I'm trying to shift away from 'zoning out' rest, which I'd define primarily as pointlessly surfing social media and news apps, to either resting through sleep (like humming42, I can usually sleep pretty much straight away when I get to bed, but I am noticing a pattern of working late then zoning out to transition out of working and it leaves me with less sleep than I'd like) or more active rest. There's some craft/home organising projects I'd like to make a start on and they give me a sense of satifaction from process and visible progress.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks ago:
-reconnect with postgrad students: Yes, have touch base with all, and more substantial meetings with some. I seem to have also picked up a colleague's student while they are on long service leave - a slightly complicated case involving contested corrections. And I've just sent off what I hope are the final editorial comments on corrections for the student with English as a second language who wouldn't hand in any writing until the last minute. Combined with only having my content comments listened to when revoiced by the senior male colleague on the supervision team, and being the only person in the team who actually bothered to read the writing thoroughly and give feedback on it, I'm am trying to reach the zen place of calling ti a learning experience as well as making resolutions about not co-supervising with certain people again (and then being a grown up and actually explaining that in a polite, boundary-setting way to that person). Okay, vent done.
-get ahead by one week on online unit during business hours not evenings. Use evenings for sleeping. Yes-ish. Did get ahead last week and now have only marking for the Easter break. Some sleeping.
-work through email consciously for designated periods each day and turn off outside those times. Yes-ish.
-get to yoga x 1. Yes for two weeks ago.
-attend Friday writing group. No. But did write an abstract for what I'll christen the rhizome paper, and previous week did write an internal grant application.
This week (what is left of it! I'm at work Wednesday, then on leave/holidays to next Tuesday)
-Make list of all the big picture thinking documents I've been promising to work on over the Easter break and rank the tasks
-Marking - make steady progress.
-Offline time - planning to go camping for two nights over Easter
AND I forgot to do my goals...
ReplyDeletelast week:
1) prepare one statistics class, one workshop stats class yes, workshop no (that's less urgent)
2) prepare information packs for four field destinations drafted
3) make sure all lists are made and orders submitted for supplies etc. for the field day ongoing. New system is hellish >:(
4) grade first year assignment done!
5) comment on drafts of second year assignment did those that were submitted on time...
6) pull together readings for Picky paper a little
7) use internal review comments to rewrite
GrantINEverShouldHaveStarted, finish internal paperwork. Maybe start progress towards submission??? reviewed comments and planned rewrite, did internal paperwork, need to do rewrite and talk to other partner before I can start the process
8) resist sugar, avoid bread yes, no
9) get sleep pattern back to something sensible (have had a very jet-lag-inducing weekend...) ish
this week and next:
I am not going into the office. I have a vague plan of a few hours of work and a few hours of active relaxation and some passive relaxation, which isn't really in place yet - Saturday-Monday I was just really tired so gave in to it, today I had counselling which always makes the rest of the day less productive, although in a productive-adjacent way. Goals:
1) relax actively - do some crochet, read some fiction, work on my NaNo writing
2) send easter goodies to family and notes to some friends
3) start work on Picky Paper OR rewrite GrantINeverShouldHaveStarted
4) keep all the rest of the job, emails and that, to one hour a day, however much fuss it makes!
5) domestic disorder reduction
Check in really late this week:
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Read some primary sources
2. Draft Berks (5 pp.)
3. Preliminary prep for guest class (4/11)
I guess I did all of these things. Yes, in fact, I did! Good deal. Of course, that meant falling behind on teaching and admin stuff, so I've spent the last few days doing nothing but those two things. This was actually something of a relief; I no longer have that vague panic-feeling of being at the end of the semester with so many things left to do. Well, I still have SOME of that feeling, but it's not quite as anxiety fueled. And I have this afternoon and most of tomorrow to work on writing projects.
So, for the remainder of this week (two days!):
1. Finish rough draft of Berks (incorporate MN and CS, both of which I need to re-read/re-skim; reread the paper for continuity etc.; probably revise the intro)
2. Read the first 5 pages of ch. 5 in preparation for submitting it to my writing group.
That's all; that's enough. And because it's already 11:30 on Thursday, I'm skipping the prompt.
Great article! I completely agree with your points about the importance of trauma counselling in today's. Your insights on how counselling have really helped me understand the benefits of incorporating trauma counselling into my own counselling . Thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge, and I look forward to reading more from you in the future
ReplyDelete