Hello everyone!
I absolutely loved all the wonderful advice you wrote down last week! Some of those things really resonated with a lot of us, it was fun to read and contemplate, thank you! It makes me want to repeat the prompt, but this time with “worst advice you ever got”, or if that just makes you mad, your favourite saying or aphorism… Just for fun!
Many moons ago we decided that the week of May 1st would be the wrap-up week, so this is our last chance for some weekly goals in this session. That of course means that next week will be the time for checking in with our session goals. It also means looking ahead a bit at when the next session might start, so feel free to think about it and make suggestions!
For cabin check-in this week – what is your favourite feature of the cabin? And what are you planning to do for your first weekend at your cabin? It is ready, it is waiting, and you can go any time!
Last week’s goals
Daisy
Paper edits of course
Have awkward conversations with friends and colleagues
Accounting
Digital spring cleaning
Continue spring cleaning
Dame Eleanor Hull
Health: cardio x6, stretch x6, track
bedtime.
Research: 2 hours a day! Finish & turn in sabbatical proposal. Make
progress on book.
Teaching: grade two new assignments and give points to async-week stuff.
Life stuff: do some gardening, bake something, mail a package.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Really start on the faculty report.
Continue recycling paper copies of articles.
Brainstorm two article ideas.
Change the conflicting doctor appointment.
heu mihi
1) Catch up on other two journal
articles. Now getting urgent.
2) Outline ch. 1
3) OMG so many things.
4) My kid is on spring break right now, which just makes it more complicated.
Also, all of a sudden we have a social life, to which I'm entirely
unaccustomed.
5) Revise Kalamazoo paper to something like an acceptable conference length.
6) My own article proofs.
Humming42
1 finish and submit book reviews
2 draft cfp for slash collection
3 organize judges for conference
4 submit abstract for one-day conference
JaneB
1) contact GP
2) prepare for week 11
3) make a list of the marking I have to do and see what might need delaying
4) other lists. Just make the lists.
5) move, eat reasonably, drink water, try to sleep at 'appropriate' times
Karen (carried over)
1. Fill remaining VILE content gaps for
next week before the weekend, keep boards under control
2. Make a plan for upcoming school holidays
3. Finish postgrad exegesis feedback
4. 2 hours of my writing
Susan (carried over)
1. Finish this chapter (doable)
before trip to Library
2. Keep reading ms.
3. Do fun thing
4. Go to all the meetings
5. Keep up with exercise & good eating
6. Set up Mom's new computer (hangs over me . . .anxiety.)
Last . . . ? Oh my Cat. I still have two weeks of teaching ahead of me. I'm not ready!
ReplyDeleteWorst advice: The music will tell you. IME, the music lies through its teeth.
Runner-up: Think through problems while you go for a walk (ride, swim, whatever). I know people for whom this works. Doing something else at least gives my brain a break, and doing something physical gives me the exercise, but I can count on two fingers the times I have actually had a decent idea while exercising. I think on paper (or onscreen), and when I am walking (or whatever) I am thinking about what I see, or watching for traffic, or counting laps, as the case may be.
How I did:
Health: cardio x6, stretch x6, track bedtime. If I stretch and go for a walk today, I'll be at 5 and 6, so close enough; yes to the bedtime-tracking.
Research: 2 hours a day! Finish & turn in sabbatical proposal. Make progress on book. NO, YES, VERY LITTLE. A lot of extra stuff came up this week, and research-time suffered accordingly.
Teaching: grade two new assignments and give points to async-week stuff. YES! I have graded ALL THE THINGS! Temporarily. Another drops tonight.
Life stuff: do some gardening, bake something, mail a package. YES (for my MIL, not for me), NO, NO. Sir John's mother needed a planter that would hide her view of a stop sign, so we went to a garden center and I chose some suitable plants and a container, then potted them up and delivered the result. She's delighted and I had a good time, plus we can call it her Mother's Day present, so win-win-win.
New goals:
Health: cardio x6, stretch x6, track bedtime.
Research: 2 hours a day! Make progress on book: say, finish the frelling section I've been on for much too long, and start the next one.
Teaching: grade one new assignment and any stray stuff that comes in late. Order fall books.
Life stuff: do some gardening, bake something, mail a package.
Admin: fill in & file some forms.
Two hours a day sounds...astonishing. I congratulate you on your ambition!
DeleteAnd on the planter, which sounds really nice all around.
Yeah, not ready either! Glad the planter stuff was satisfying and fun. And I'm also suitably impressed with all the research time you are putting in, the consistency is admirable!
DeleteI'm pretty sure that I've been given a lot of bad advice, but I can't think of any of it right now. So instead I'll offer some bewildering advice from Marie Kondo, who recommends putting any books that you want to keep on a shelf in a closed cupboard so that they're out of your "line of vision." I'm a profound lover of tidying, purging, organizing, etc., and this utterly baffles me. Why should your books be out of your line of vision? What else do you want to be looking at, exactly? Closed cupboards? But why?
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1) Catch up on other two journal articles. Now getting urgent. - YES
2) Outline ch. 1 - YES, but I did this while in a Zoom meeting on Friday afternoon, so it didn't really get the attention that it deserved. It was a very long, very boring Zoom meeting.
3 & 4 weren't really items.
5) Revise Kalamazoo paper to something like an acceptable conference length. - NO
6) My own article proofs. - YES, this morning, in bed, which was kind of nice.
This week:
1) Read and prepare to discuss two papers for a works-in-progress thing on Thursday.
2) Closely read reviewer notes on edited collection so that co-editor and I can discuss them and send them out to contributors ASAP.
3) Start "writing" ch. 1. ("Writing" must be in quotes there, because really. I am not ready to write, only to "write.")
4) Shorten Kzoo paper--this will probably wait till next week, but who knows.
5) Stretch nightly before bed.
Some days I like to go into my office just to look at my books, remembering the pleasure of those I read and anticipating the ones I have waiting for me. I guess if I followed this bad advice, I'd have to open the cupboard...as if my books could fit into a cupboard.
DeleteA friend read that part of the Kondo plan and wrote to me "If I saw someone do that I would genuinely feel that it would be less weird to have a display case of all the gum they ever chewed... Who hides their favourite books???" So yeah, totally agree there!
DeleteLots of Yes in that week, hope this one continues well!
I'm sure I've given bad advice in my time, though nothing is springing to mind at the moment. And I'm also shocked at how close tot he end we are. With school and public holidays, the last few weeks have been rather chaotic, and so I've been holding onto the good advice of floating like mist to carry me through the rapid about faces of being at work/away/with kids/with friends/fretting about family away from me.
ReplyDeleteSo to catch up here:
1. Fill remaining VILE content gaps for next week before the weekend, keep boards under control - yes, done in the sense of keeping up with it
2. Make a plan for upcoming school holidays - yes, and following
3. Finish postgrad exegesis feedback - still working through but end is in sight, and having a breakdown over the remaining structural issues seems to have helped motivate the student to do some of the hard work themselves.
4. 2 hours of my writing - hah, no.
This week is still chaotic, but is also my last gap before marking starts to really hit so I'd better set some motivational targets.
1. Write 2 x NTRO pieces
2. Do 2 yoga classes
3. Block out marking time over the next week
4. keep VILE up to date, and make a start on next semester's VILE.
Hope chaos starts to calm down a bit! Planning for holidays can be fun, hope it is not the stressful kind of planning. Good luck with ongoing student stuff!
DeleteTomorrow is my last in-person class meeting of the semester! It’s been a struggle to connect with students for months now, and I am grateful to have that particular burden lifted. I understand they are struggling too and I am hopeful those who are will find some clarity. Mostly I look forward to being able to focus on research and writing, which is always going on in the periphery, and can now be moved to the front.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good thing, I think, that I can’t recall any bad advice.
This week:
1 finish and submit book reviews
2 draft cfp for slash collection
3 submit list of award recipients for campus conference
4 submit abstract for one-day conference (TRQ)
5 create plan for grading (to be completed next week)
Last week:
1 finish and submit book reviews: in progress
2 draft cfp for slash collection: in progress
3 organize judges for conference: done.
4 submit abstract for one-day conference: in progress
My colleagues all say the same - never been so hard to connect with students, and never been so hard to get them to participate and engage. And yes, everyone is tired and burnt out but that doesn't make it suck any less..
DeleteLots of great progress last week, hope this week goes well!
ReplyDeleteOoooh, bad advice is so subjective – some things clearly work for some people and not for others… Some at the top of my list would be… The entire “inbox zero” idea! It just does not make sense to me, I tried it once and spent so much time organizing folders and losing stuff in them that it was just a giant time sink. It is called a “search function” for a reason…
Advice that was well-intentioned but useless: “sleep when the baby sleeps”… Yeah, like in the 15 minute increments on my lap? Not for me… A lot of child-rearing advice fell in the category of “not the hill I want to die on” but I’m sure it worked for others.
Professionally? I think the “only volunteer for stuff that can directly benefit you immediately” is the worst… Not saying to volunteer for everything or stuff you genuinely hate, but checking of the “what’s in it for me” and writing off things is not an attitude that lends itself to serendipity and developing outside of one’s initial small box…
The best aphorism I’ve read recently is “Don’t be upset by the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t do”. That is really speaking to me right now, and is a good reminder that I get to choose where to put effort, and therefore choose where the results will be…
Last week’s goals
Paper edits of course DIDN’T EVEN OPEN
Have awkward conversations with friends and colleagues YES, MORE NEXT WEEK
Accounting LOTS, MORE TO COME
Digital spring cleaning DID ONE FOLDER AND GAVE UP AND BOUGHT A SECOND HARD DRIVE
Continue spring cleaning LITTLE BITS
In extra things: student’s thesis defense was successful, very proud of all the work they put in, and conference stuff is taking up my entire life, which is fine and fun and terrifying all at once…
This week’s goals:
Continuing conference wrangling – it is 3 weeks away and coming fast!
Student thesis edits
Paper edits
Start writing 3 conference talks and one plenary address
Go back in time to slap former self about signing up for three conference talks