Welcome, I hope you all had a good week! We have a "heat wave" by UK standards (it hit the mid-80s Fahrenheit on Friday and will be back there tomorrow! This is HOT by local standards...) right now which makes me feel better about being largely idle/in recovery mode.
Last week, we talked about people to take along with us into the coming academic year, with another Julia Cameron prompt/quote. That started me thinking about how the voices that encourage and support us along the way might be people we see in person a lot (one of my teaching partners is just the best, kindest, smartest, most efficient and effective academic and person - I would like to grow up to be him one day), people we know in person but mostly correspond with through technology (e.g. for me, for example, a former grad student and post-doc who is a permanent research partner, and field-friends I've been meeting at conferences for a couple of decades now), and people we only know through the internet (you wonderful people!). There's a fourth category of voices we didn't cover though, those we know only through the written word. There are a lot of text-voices who come along with me, poets, scientists whose papers inspire (or provide anti-inspiration), beloved escapes into other worlds - but I thought this week we could share a couple of suggestions for voices specifically about the process of work, whether that's writing, teaching or research. So, this week's prompt - what are the one or two written voices on work processes you plan to take along with you into the coming year, or would recommend to others?
GOALS FROM LAST WEEK
Daisy
- Pack
- Move
- Unpack
Dame Eleanor Hull
- Two hours x 5 on research
- One hour x 4 on teaching prep
- Half hour x 4 on dead language
- Bills, closet, phone, other Life Stuff as possible
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
carried-over goals
- 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
2. Get both cars inspected.
3. Clean garage.
4. Run or walk every day (except Saturday, which is a travel day).
5. Sit every day through Friday.
6. Go to campus and take care of Campus Things: return books, scan needed books, maybe clean out a file drawer or two.
7. Read new primary text.
Humming42
carried-over goals:
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
2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. This could be a brain dump of things to do on my leave days, maybe reframing it that way will make my brain more amenable?
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 25 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 (I just added one today, but it is for a little writing session with a colleague on something we've both been putting off, so it's not really a MEETING meeting - all people stuff is wearing me out right now, but I thought adding this would help progress something from my summer list so was worth the cost)
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, finish current job board game AND write another one or do some other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.
Karen
carried-over goals:
- 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)
LAST WEEK'S GOALS
ReplyDelete1) work no more than 25 hours (29 and a half - and I'm paying for it this weekend, just NO energy/motivation plus guilt/Work Urges - although the heat isn't helping as I have the edge of a headache and my stomach never likes hot weather - or possibly I ate too much salad which is always an ironic thing to write as a Fat Person (TM))
2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. This could be a brain dump of things to do on my leave days, maybe reframing it that way will make my brain more amenable? (not yet... sigh... but some ideas are drifting into my head)
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. (mostly, yes, in the week but not on the weekend, in the week but not on the weekend, yes. Spot the weekend flop...)
4) pressure reduction: if I have room in the 25 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 (I just added one today, but it is for a little writing session with a colleague on something we've both been putting off, so it's not really a MEETING meeting - all people stuff is wearing me out right now, but I thought adding this would help progress something from my summer list so was worth the cost) (the writing session got cancelled, for sad reasons unfortunately, by the colleague. I spent longer than I hoped on sorting out student project issues and on remaining exam issues (setting resits up, having to make individualised contact with every student with remaining issues - and I had a LOT of them because I, lucky me, got to pick up aaaallll the undergrads who had post-grads as their tutors as well as my own - postgrad tutors are only expected to support their students during the teaching and assessment weeks of the trimester they work in, and we are into the next trimester now (summer trimester, thank goodness, only applies to Non-Standard-Programmes and Taught Post-Graduate, and I only teach on standard undergraduate programmes this year). Doing that did push up my hours this week, but actually finishing the whole list felt like the psychologically healthier thing to do, given how much the possibility of forgetting things and task switching are currently stressing me out (they always do but this is worse than normal)). Anyway. I didn't work on my final year option module, but I DID spend about three hours on my other third year module (the core project module - there are three of these which are very similar, one for each of the programme groups, and next year LUCKY ME I teach two of them. I'm splitting the prep with the person assigned the third one, which helps. They have individual seminars but shared lectures...)
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, finish current job board game AND write another one or do some other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times. (no, yes (a new Katherine Addison that I forgot I pre-ordered appeared on my phone via the kindle app. The second in a sequence about the same character which made it easier to move into, and it was beautifully written and very timely, seeming to be about grief, and grieving, and going on anyway), yes, no, finished the current one but no other prep, no(
NEXT WEEK'S GOALS:
Delete1) work no more than 25 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 25 hours, review my honours module and decide what can stay from this year's iteration and what I can easily and quickly refresh.
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, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.
And I'll leave the prompt a day or two to see what others come up with!
Thanks for the heads-up about the new Katherine Addison! My local library has it, so I'll try to nab it today. Excellent work on getting the Whole List of student issues done; sometimes it really is the better option to push through and feel finished. The tricky bit is figuring out when to do that, and when to just stop!
DeleteMid-80s sounds divine: we had a couple of days like that last week, but most of this week is going to be 90s, which is past my comfort point. Not to be inhospitable, but you should never visit the American Midwest in summer! It's not even dry heat. And the contrast between indoor A/C and outdoor steaminess is wretched.
I spent two years as a post doc in a part of North America which experiences strong Great Lakes lake effect - my body never got used to stepping from cardigan-requiring air conditioning to breathing hot soup (temps in the 90s and humidity in the same range) in summer - the predictable afternoon thunderstorms were dramatic, but it's not a climate I am well designed for! The winter when it was arid tropical conditions indoors and sub-zero outdoors was also not fun. I discovered why there was special chap stick for the inside of the nostrils, and I could have lived my entire life happily without needing that!
DeleteAh, so you know exactly what I'm complaining of! Autumn is usually nice and spring sometimes is, but summer and winter here are both Too Much.
DeleteI did love the fall, and parts of the winter, and spring was nice in single unexpected days. But it wasn't enough to compensate for the long summer and the icky bits of winter, for me...
DeleteWritten voices on writing? Hmm–there’s no one I follow completely, but I can think of a few phrases that resound with me. I found Paul Silvia’s How to Write a Lot urged me to write every day, which I try to do. Joli Jensen’s Write No Matter What also has helpful tips on writing, as well as addressing what keeps one from writing.
ReplyDeleteThe last month has been full of medical things–most for my husband, whose approaching birthday is making him finally see some doctors for things that have been bugging him for a while. I have been suffering from a bad back, which encourages my insomnia, and all that balls up and rolls on and on.
Last month’s goals:
Finish up the loose ends of the training, moving into the revision phase of training. Yes. The intern is doing very well, so my only complaint is keeping up with him
Get through a meeting-rich week. Yes, as well as the assigned tasks that came from all those meetings.
Finish the “listen to me sing my own praises” report. Yes. My goodness, that report is such drudgery!
Read a few chapters on women translators. Yes.Even better, I found a few more.
Also done: Went to a conference in DC; nursed the husband through a corneal implant; moved my work-from-home desk out of the attic to my older son’s room; planned a trip to see the grandkids next week.
Next week’s goals:
Enjoy the week off.
Send off the mid-internship evaluation to the requisite folks.
Swim in my younger daughter’s pool (such luxury!)
Read and write as the impulse hits.
I hope everyone has a productive and yet vacation-y week. Float like mist.
Hi, Elizabeth! I've been wondering how you were doing. Sorry to hear about the insomnia! It's been afflicting me as well. Congrats on getting through the self-report, and the conference, nursing, and desk-moving are important Done items.
DeleteInsomnia is horrible, and it sounds like you have had a lot to do even without that! Have a wonderful week off!
DeleteLast week was a massive fail on pretty much all counts. I paid bills; my closet is partly back together; I did a bit better w/r/t exercise. Local fireworks were on the 3rd; my husband and I went to the park to watch them, and had a good time, and I'm glad we did that. News from the rest of the week was massively depressing (Highland Park, Japan). I had some stomach problems that led to highly disturbed sleep. For a few days I tried to power through and get back to a normal bedtime, but I was so zonked that eventually I gave up and am currently sleeping c. 2:30-10:30. This meant I had a couple of decent days at the weekend, which I spent weeding the garden and reading/hanging out instead of doing anything more productive!
ReplyDeleteSo my new goals are mostly the old ones:
- daily exercise and gradually push bedtime earlier
- Two hours x 5 on research
- One hour x 4 on teaching prep
- Half hour x 4 on dead language
- Life Stuff as possible
I'm not going to specify what Life Stuff because I don't know what I'll have the energy for. I'm feeling overwhelmed and in the sort of headspace where I can't tackle things because I feel bad about not having done them already. More sleep would improve my mood, if I can get there. I'll try to do one Life Task per day (or one piece of bigger ones), keep track, and list the done things next week.
The prompt is a great one but ATM I am only thinking of writers who make me feel like chopped liver (Anthony Trollope and his 500 words every 15 minutes or whatever it was) so like JaneB I will try to return later with someone more encouraging! Elizabeth's suggestion of Joli Jensen looks like something I should check out.
Okay, here's a more cheerful one than Trollope: C. S. Lewis. (Not that I am a big fan of his, but since he was a significant medievalist and a member of the Inklings, that's two reasons for me to know about him.) Somewhere in his letters, he writes about the schedule that he kept when writing was going well, and it's clear that writing was "kept in its place" by household chores, interaction with the people he lived with, and other obligations. He got a lot done in an hour or two in the morning and another hour or two later in the day, and it's a good reminder/attestation that small amounts of time add up, and that even Significant Oxbridge Men worked that way, rather than in 8-hour days of All Writing All The Time. Also that walks, time with people, and household stuff have to get done and can be nourishing to the work, no matter who you are.
DeleteThat sounds like a tough week. The Japan news had somehow slid past me (I currently cannot handle any of our available standard daily news media in the UK, and don't feel fully confident in the accuracy of any one of them, so my news following is a bit erratic) - a lot of climate stuff rattling around my brain and I've been distracted by the total humiliation of the UK by its so called political elite, the entertaining perspectives on this offered by the social media accounts of the various cats who work in government buildings, and trying to limit my time on social media stuff.
DeleteCS Lewis is an encouraging work example, despite issues with the life and the work! Darwin also - his whiny letters and diary entries about how horrible he feels and how hard work is always comfort me, and he certainly didn't work long hours.
DeleteWell, I packed, moved, and am actively engaged in unpacking... Unpacking won’t be complete for a while yet, but it is well underway. So all goals are completed, not that I really had a choice…
ReplyDeleteAll went well, and I even managed to get into the office today! I am sorting out new house quirks and trying to figure out where things go, and have picked out a pile of paint colours because the greyish off-white walls are terribly depressing and need to disappear along with the pink carpet! So far so good!
This week's goals:
Get office keys, ID, parking pass, access cards
Organize office
Do three fun new area things with kid
Unpack books at home
Additional data analysis for project former me did such a good job on (apparently now it is a paper thanks to that work!)
Writing voices… My absolute favourite is a local prof, Stephen Heard, who wrote a writing book called “The scientist’s guide to writing”. I know him a little, we’ve crossed paths on committees and things but I read his stuff for ages before meeting him. He is by far the most human writing-advice-giver I have found. He’s all about the process, and very honest about struggles and defeats and difficulties. I buy his book for all my grad students. His writing advice is spot-on and really helpful, but he also has another book about scientific names “Charles Darwin’s barnacle and David Bowie’s spider” which is delightful and a brilliant example of scientific writing that is accessible and clear. He also has a blog that touches on writing and lots of cool general interest things (search “scientist sees squirrel” but without spaces). Absolutely worth checking out!
Congratulations on having completed the move! I look forward to hearing more about the paint colors you choose. I hope the house's bones are good under the pink carpet and other offenses.
DeleteYay for a completed move! I do like Stephen Heard's writing - I buy my grad students the Pugh & Phillips "How to get a PhD" book since that explains the UK system well as well as having lots of how to advice for writing, planning etc., but Heard is on my shelf (along with Day's "How to Write a Scientific Paper") for loaning.
DeleteQuick check-in today from my in-laws' house.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Think through (in note form) the links between writers. - No
2. Get both cars inspected. - Yes
3. Clean garage. - Yes
4. Run or walk every day (except Saturday, which is a travel day). - Yes
5. Sit every day through Friday. - All but Thursday
6. Go to campus and take care of Campus Things: return books, scan needed books, maybe clean out a file drawer or two. - Yes, some of this
7. Read new primary text. - Yes
This week:
1. Clean one car so that it can be left at my mom's.
2. Deal with two journal articles.
3. Defrost freezer.
4. Electronics & hazardous household waste recycling.
5. Work out airport ride
6. Try to find out what to do about the erroneous expiration date on my son's visa.
7. Something to do with work/research??? Probably not.
8. Paint the countertops (a multi-stage process).
We're traveling home from my in-laws' (by train) today, and then on Saturday we're going to see my family for the better part of a week--so I have very little time, and we're getting into the last stages of preparing for our trip....
That's a lot of YES last week. Well done! Considering that you have a whole semester of research coming up, I'd say you're allowed to put it aside for a couple of weeks while you get ready for the trip.
DeleteWe all get to take time off! Especially with a big trip coming up, you have quite enough to do!
DeleteJust dropping in to say I'm having a trying time lately and will try to rejoin the next iteration of TLQ. Wishing you all a happy remainder of summer/winter.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry things aren't going well, and hope they get better.
DeleteSending good thoughts your way, hope things get better soon.
DeleteSorry to hear that - hoping things resolve smoothly
DeleteWriters on writing - I've found a lot of useful and encouraging content in Peter Elbow's work (Writing With Power, Writing to Learn, Writing Without Teachers). He writes a lot about freewriting, about separating the writing and the editing brains, about writing as thinking and writing before you are ready, which has really helped me in terms of embracing my natural wordiness, seeing it as a strength not as me "not doing things right", and in finding new tools to help to improve my writing process without it feeling like I am trying to STOP doing something, or restrain the writing. His work seems to be mostly about TEACHING writing (I haven't read everything he's written by any means) rather than writing as an academic, but I find it more helpful than much of the how-to-academic material (partly because a lot of the latter assumes a US-like context, partly because it's NOT telling me how I ought to do my job, and so gets past my stroppy inner toddler/dragon more easily!).
ReplyDeleteQUOTES: "Producing writing is not so much like filling a basin or pool once, but rather getting water to keep flowing through until finally it runs clear" and "Writing is an organic, developmental process in which you start writing at the very beginning, before you know your meaning at all, and encourage your words gradually to change and evolve. Only at the end will you know what you want to say"