the grid

the grid

Sunday 26 June 2022

2022 second session, Week 5

 After another very difficult week in the "real world", we'd have to be strange creatures indeed to not be feeling a bit frazzled and concerned about the road ahead being difficult regardless of where we live.  I hope you're all keeping well, and not too personally affected by ::waves hands in lieu of even trying to start making a list:: everything?  We're a supportive, listening community here - as ever, you are very welcome to vent or share whatever is on your mind as part of the process of goal reviewing and goal setting this week.  

Our theme for this session, of taking some time to reflect and prepare for the work we have yet to do, certainly has wider application right now.  What I'd like to suggest as our topic today is what we might leave behind when we move on - whether you imagine that as just putting it down and not looking back, putting it into storage or handing it over to someone else to carry for a while, or actively cutting it off.  Is there a project which has lost momentum, or which needs more than you can currently give it?  Is there a role or responsibility where you need to either say no now, or start the process of moving on from?  Or is there some advice on writing, which others swear by, which is actually holding you back or encouraging the Bugges to swarm in the brain?  Or just a recurring thought or habit that needs a thorough dose of the Dame's Bugge Spray, and a decent burial under a nice heavy rock?

LAST WEEK'S GOALS:

Daisy
  • Start house packing in earnest
  • Arrange moving company
  • DO literally anything on old paper
  • Send off last batch of samples for analysis
  • Grad student proposal edits
  • Visit new place for planning

Dame Eleanor Hull

  • - go to conference and have a good time
  • - make travel preparations
  • - recover from conference/travel

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over from last week)

  • Finish up the loose ends of the training, moving into the revision phase of training.
  • Get through a meeting-rich week.
  • Finish the “listen to me sing my own praises” report.
  • Read a few chapters on women translators.

heu mihi

  • 1. Complete intro revisions (my share, for now)
  • 2. Content edits for journal article
  • 3. Buy and plant pachysandra if it's still available
  • 4. Get new driver's license; take car in for oil change; order contacts; figure out prescription
  • 5. Read and take a few notes on 3 articles for tenure review
  • 6. Make progress on super long book that I've been reading for months
  • 7. Exercise again
  • 8. Read over resubmitted essay
  • 9. Start planning short trips

Humming42 (carried over from last week)

  • 1 stay current on writing classes
  • 2 submit an overdue book review
  • 3 sort out bookmarks for Tiny Project
  • 4 continue working on media literacy class
  • 5 a new one: drink more water

JaneB

  • work no more than 20 hours 
  • make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. 
  • replenishment: back to basics - keep it up! Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily. The weakest area here was chores - surprise surprise - so this is a particular focus.
  • pressure reduction: if I have room in the 20 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh. Add no more meetings
  •  fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D AND write another job board game/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen

  • -Finish syllabi, get materials/tech requests in, make progress on first module VILE content
  • -Write on my own research each day (read for my own research each day)
  • - (if permitted by gatekeepers), get draft grant complete
  • - conference paper proposal in
  • - 2 x yoga (livestream classes from home)

18 comments:

  1. I am a border-line hoarder - I find letting things go very difficult, physically or mentally - so this prompt is definitely close to home for me! I'm currently looking more at my habits around teaching, since that takes up such a large chunk of my time, but I definitely tend to accumulate projects and ideas. One of the things I resent about the way performance measures in STEM are so aggressively built around grant money and the things/staff it can buy is that that actually feeds into constantly saying "yes" to more things, so that very little gets finished. I could easily produce a decent quality paper or two every year at least until retirement with the data and ideas and collaborations I currently have, but that is unacceptable to the academic machine. And I am still too swayed by the lure of the new and the pressure of others...

    One piece of advice I definitely need to leave behind is "write every day" - it's a great notion, but it's just not compatible with the kind of job that I have in my context. I need to remember that, for example, in the US context most academics have the same teaching timetable every week of the trimester (which blows my mind - such luxury!) making it easier to create work habits, and that the source of the advice is particularly aimed at tenure-track folk who are most fiercely in the grip of publish or perish. Taking on advice designed for the different context which is made on the basis of assumptions which don't all exist in my own setting is just setting myself up to fail, & and I don't need to feed the Bugges any new ideas!

    LAST WEEK'S GOALS:
    1) work no more than 20 hours NO - 24 hours, and that was with a hot spell and quite a lot of postponing things I can't keep postponing indefinitely.

    2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. NO. it was hot, I was sad and low on energy, I just didn't. Also YouTube shorts are very bad for me but nearly as addictive as paprika flavoured ridged crisps

    3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up! Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily. yes, yes, yes until the temp rose above 25 degrees C (I am aware that's only the seventies F, but I am Bred for the North, it was humid, and UK houses are designed to keep heat IN), no and yes - so not bad, but chores are still Not Getting Done much

    4) pressure reduction: if I have room in the 20 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh. Add no more meetings No and NO. I need more practice at no! But we are still in the tail end of assessment, so for example this week the last set of first year module marks were released (the last assignment was extended for the whole group by more than a month... sigh...) which meant that I had about 4 hours of dealing with student concerns (have I failed, what happens now I failed, why didn't I get an A+, my feedback doesn't make sense) which extended into supporting diverse markers and just emotional energy.

    5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D AND write another job board game/play with watercolours a couple of times. NO, NO - I started a slightly more serious book & then lost the will for it, YES (whilst watching the dull bit of a couple of meetings!), played but haven't finished the writing bit, ONCE

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    1. GOALS FOR THE COMING WEEK:
      1) work no more than 20 hours
      2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff.
      3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up! Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.
      4) pressure reduction: if I have room in the 20 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh. Add no more meetings
      5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D AND write another job board game/play with watercolours a couple of times.

      This week is going to be busier because I have 2 meetings most days - so I've got to be STRICT about not working extra hours around them... because today was a "relapse day" after a couple of productive ones, and I need to be really careful to keep a recovery trajectory...

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    2. Thank you for the reminder of how lucky North Americans are to have consistent schedules---that isn't something I really think about much, but absolutely it is a useful thing for us and makes your life much harder! And I want to offer all the support I can w/r/t maintaining a recovery trajectory. Better to take baby steps in the right direction than to fall on your face and break things!

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    3. A lot of YES on there--and I do hope that you're able to keep work to a minimum this week!

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    4. Yay for getting to some of the fun creative stuff! I just recently learned how to crochet and I love it! Keep protecting your recovery time, it is important!

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  2. What I'll leave behind: things that don't serve me. W/r/t [waves hands/ everything], my husband observed that the tendency of women to be better listeners/ softer/ more concerned with consensus-building puts us at a disadvantage compared to men, who are much more me-me-me. When my whole country can't manage to put my rights on an equal footing with those of men, well, FTS. What will serve me (me, me)? And, okay, what will help people like me who are likely to return the favor?

    So today I shared my conference paper with a friend/slightly senior scholar (because it will help her and she will help me), but I'm ignoring the request of a male president-of-society for a paper in an area that does not advance my research agenda. I mean, being what I am, of course I can think of a paper topic that would connect his interests and mine, and of course I'd love to visit the place where the conference will be, and I'd be delighted to see him, but still, it does not directly serve my main interests, so no. I don't need to be known in his field. I have enough disparate interests already! (This is proven by my session chair at last week's conference, who was surprised to discover that I'd done the Huge Honking Translation in addition to the work she knows me for.)

    How I did:
    - go to conference and have a good time. YES oh boy howdy YES. It was awesome! I lied to the burglars. Sir John came with and it was lovely to have him along.
    - make travel preparations. YES b/c I had to.
    - recover from conference/travel. YES.

    New goals:
    - some exercise daily (I'm having foot problems, so yoga etc rather than walking), bed by 11
    - read book, write book review
    - reading and notes for my own book
    - revise assignments for fall undergrad class
    - finish cleaning closet, plant seedlings, 2 social events, read Bk 2 of Shadow Campaigns & return to library, pay bills, get new phone, tend mental health assiduously b/c THIS WORLD OMG.

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    1. So glad that the conference was worth the travel and the recovery accomplished! And that's a great example of both how hard it is to say no and how important it is... Hope the feet stop messing around!

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    2. Conference fun! I can't wait to get back to a real conference, with real friends/colleagues. So glad that you had a good time!

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    3. So glad that the conference was good! It is such a great change of scene when it works and so satisfying to see people again...

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  3. I would really like to let go of, first of all, anxiety over things beyond my control. (Who wouldn't?) The whole silly visa situation--hopefully to be resolved soon! The document in question should reach the consulate today!--really threw me off for quite a while, and I was unable to do much of anything other than perseverate. I would also like to stop agreeing to do things. I just agreed to write a book review--the book looks interesting, I do want to read it, but I haven't been working on my own stuff as it is, because I've been consumed by reading in preparation for writing this tenure evaluation letter! All stuff that I didn't have to agree to do! (Well, tenure letters must get written, and I see this as an obligation of sorts--people have written for me; I should write for others, whether it's convenient or not. But still.)

    Last week: I did get through a lot, actually. Most of these items were pretty quick.
    1. Complete intro revisions (my share, for now) -YES
    2. Content edits for journal article -YES
    3. Buy and plant pachysandra if it's still available -YES, and it was
    4. Get new driver's license; take car in for oil change; order contacts; figure out prescription -YES on all four
    5. Read and take a few notes on 3 articles for tenure review -YES
    6. Make progress on super long book that I've been reading for months -YES; finished it on Monday of this week
    7. Exercise again -YES
    8. Read over resubmitted essay -YES
    9. Start planning short trips -JUST A LITTLE; I need to do more here, but I think that I'll feel more confident etc. once the visa is settled.

    This week:
    1. Tenure letter: Finish articles; read part (NOT ALL) of book; draft letter.
    2. House stuff: Finish going through my son's stuff (with his help; he's doing a great job of purging); donation trip to thrift shop; wash windows; weed hill; weed and mulch lilacs
    3. Trip prep: Find out when friends might visit; contact departmental business manager about setting up a meeting
    4. Research!!: Return to my chapter; notes on super long book; read short book
    5. Fun: Read novel; make a new diary

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ticking small things off a list can free up disproportionately large amounts of brain space - lots of progress there! Hopefully getting the tenure letter done and the documents for the visa delivered will make this week feel productive too.

      Yes wouldn't it be nice to leave some of the not-so-useful anxiety behind? If you find ways do share...

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    2. Honestly, my mom's recommendation--Xanax--is starting to sound pretty good...!

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    3. Xanax is wonderful stuff. I have always found that I can take a small dose on an as-needed basis (no need to take it regularly, like an anti-depressant), and it just . . . wipes out the anxiety. Brain is fine, not sleepy or anything, all systems are normal except I'm not stupidly anxious. And knowing what that feels like can help a lot. For awhile I even had myself trained to relax on planes without taking it, because I associated boarding a flight with the Xanax-relaxation. Then the 737-Max crashes ruined that, but since I refuse to fly in one of them, I may manage to re-train myself, eventually.

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    4. That is a lot of DONE stuff, I hope the visa stuff gets sorted too. Hope you get to the fun reading stuff this week!

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  4. What do I want to leave behind? Well, for the move goes, as much as possible!!! But that is not going to happen because everyone else in the house has very different feelings about “stuff”… So I am throwing out my own stuff only, and lobbying for some reduction in other stuff before we pack it. I’m not optimistic…
    For work stuff I get to leave behind some of my association duties, but I will stay involved and keep working on some things that I started. I’m leaving behind all my teaching material, none of it will transfer to my new courses which is part wonderful, part scary! Sadly leaving behind a degree program I built from the ground up with a dear friend, that one I’m going to miss… For writing and research I’m leaving behind a few un-started projects, and a few unfinished ones. Might be a great time to admit that the last paper from my PhD is never going to get done?

    Last week’s goals:
    Start house packing in earnest STARTED
    Arrange moving company YES
    DO literally anything on old paper DISCUSSION WITH COLLEAGUES COUNTS
    Send off last batch of samples for analysis YES
    Grad student proposal edits YES, LOTS
    Visit new place for planning YES, GREAT TRIP

    Everything is basically chaos, but I know it will not last forever so concentrating on baby steps to keep moving! The visit to new place was wonderful, I love my new colleagues (have for a long time!) but it was just another confirmation that I am making a really good move...

    This week’s goals:
    Do big batch of data processing for report
    Anything on old paper will be a win
    Deliver goodbye cards and gifts to office people
    Migrate emails and documents
    Write report for committee where chair bailed

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    1. I really envy that ability to leave stuff and papers behind - I just do NOT have it! A huge new start like this sounds like a wonderful opportunity to declutter... everything, house, office, head, project list.

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    2. So glad that you're making such a good move! Good luck with the decluttering!

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    3. You already know and like your new colleagues! This is such a win! The chaos will settle eventually; just keep on keeping on.

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