Here we are again! Sending you all good vibes for peace and rest and enjoyment in the coming week, as well as the right amount of productivity balanced with leisure. Speaking of that, what is the right amount for you, personally? I have so many questions about that that I'm going to go to a bulleted list:
- How do you like work and leisure distributed?
- Do you like to check things off your work list one after the other and then have a big chunk of free time?
- Or do you like to mooch around for awhile, do a work thing, do a house thing, work a bit, futz a bit?
- Do you prefer to keep standard work hours and have evenings and weekends free?
- Or are you better with a shifted schedule like noon-nine or early-early morning to just past noon?
- Whatever your preferred schedule, are there times of year when you get to keep it?
- Or do life circumstances dictate your schedule?
- How could you inject a little of what you like about your best schedule into your ordinary life?
I hope these will help you think about our theme of "preparing to write."
Best wishes to Humming42, Susan, GEW, and other past participants who are not with us this summer; we hope to see you sometime!
Now here are last week's goals; let us know how you did and what your plans for the coming week are:
Daisy
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
Dame Eleanor Hull
- 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
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
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.
heu mihi
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).
JaneB
1) 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.
Karen (held over)
- 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)
Schedules... hard to think about. I often feel like I just don't know because whatever I settle into "the world" disrupts! Broadly I've always felt like my schooling or work are requiring me to constantly fight my natural preferences, so every break (every weekend, every holiday, every day I don't HAVE to do things to meet other peoples' needs) I fall out of the pattern I "should" live in. This is a blessing and a curse of living alone! The last year I've had a lot of insomnia and disrupted sleep (thanks, That Certain Age and stress) which also hasn't helped. And my current cat has got me trained that there should always be something to nibble on, rather than him being fed at set times and gobbling the lot (he's actually good at regulating his own weight, cats are so annoying that way, but it does make my life easier not being woken up spot on cat food time...).
ReplyDeleteI THINK my ideal would be a Mediterranean style two sleeps a day with a relatively short night and long siesta, but it varies with daylight length, with my mental health (if I am having a bad anxiety patch, I tend to sleep much better when its daylight outside for some reason...), with the weather... my brain works well at night, for academic/writing stuff, but that's partly that sense of solitary scholarship, of being quiet and away from the noise of the world, which I enjoy (I like pretending to be, oh, a Dark Age monk or a mystic scratching away in a pool of lamplight, you know?). But then I don't get up the next day... or feel rubbish...
Coupled with the inconsistency of our teaching timetable (even when I have the same group at the same time for several weeks, I'm often in different classrooms, and each day is slightly different) this might partly explain my antipathy to much of the "write every day, create a schedule" type of advice - between being really bad at going to bed (hence really early mornings are counterproductive for the long term - plus my anxiety about getting hyperfocused and losing track of time and being late is enormous (one of the many, many reasons I'm now on a waiting list to be screened for neurodivergence) and not having a repeating pattern of days or weeks, it's not advice that works for me in my specific context.
We're having a short but scarily intense heatwave in the UK next week, and I'm working, and starting to feel the summer trickling away too fast, so... balancing "Do All The THings"! with "don't overdo it" which is leading to some inertia/paralysis. And I'm still trying to do phased return without wiping myself out completely...
Last week - I attended an online teaching seminar thing (a long afternoon one day, a long morning the next) which actually sparked some really useful thoughts and encouraged me to feel more positive about teaching (in general at least...). I had a meeting with occupational health (which was not very useful but also not terrible). I had my annual appraisal, one of my grad students had their Annual Progress Monitoring meeting so needed my input before and after (and is having a tough summer so we needed to just chat a bit), I've been dealing with the consequences of the messages we had to send to all our straggler students last week (some of them get in touch and need something from us). So it STILL doesn't feel like summer... but actually, we're nearly half way through the non-formal-teaching-weeks of summer (we don't get "out" until later than US folks). And still not actually finished with last academic year. SIGH
DeleteLAST WEEK'S GOALS
1) work no more than 25 hours 28 hours, and "went flop" on Saturday and to some extent today...
2) make some lists for smaller things that fit under the areas of personal replenishment, reducing next year's pressures and fun/creative stuff. wrote about 5 things down. Felt panicky. Stopped writing things down again...
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, wobbly this week (hormones, heat, grumpiness), variable, yes. So the same pattern of finding some habits harder than others, but this set of habits is worth really getting ground in. I should probably add a sleep habit to this...
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. no, but I DID do work on the shared project module, and am feeling more on top of that, so not NOTHING/
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. no (but lots of texts), yes, yes, yes twice (!), yes, yes (the hot weather means layers dry more quickly and that helps my impatience...). So this one is doing OK. Which is how it should be in summer!
NEXT WEEK'S GOALS:
This coming week, so far I've got less set meetings and more work time in the calendar, so... maybe I'll finally tick off that honours module goal? But I also have research stuff to do... and then I'm taking some time off... so, goals pretty much the same.
1) work no more than 30 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. Also have meeting to divvy up work for the shared project module.
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.
Totally hear you on the paralysis between Do It All and Don't Overdo. It sounds like some good things happened last week, and you're making progress on the habits. The thing about habits is that they are always ongoing, so you just keep at them. I hope the heat is less horrible where you are than it sounds in London!
DeleteWell there weren't quite as many fires...
DeleteI love working in long focussed chunks. I like having the option of free evenings, but also like being able to work when I have something big to do or need extra time. Most evenings are still kid focussed for me so I try not to mess with those too much. Spending days in the office actually works well for me, when I’m there I work, when I go home I stop. The early months of the pandemic drove me nuts because I hated working at home. Got used to that, now I hate it again because of the move and because I don’t have a work space at the new house yet and my old desk fell apart and I’m back to the kitchen counter which is so March 2020 it is not even funny… I hate working and puttering at the same time, so office is much better in general for my brain. I’m looking forward to using my new one!
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
Get office keys, ID, parking pass, access cards DONE
Organize office DONE
Do three fun new area things with kid MANAGED 4 DIFFERENT ONES: fancy lunch, cherry picking in local orchard, swimming at new beach, and 2 beach ice cream occasions, very proud of myself!
Unpack books at home MOSTLY
Additional data analysis for project former me did such a good job on (apparently now it is a paper thanks to that work!) NOPE, BUT I DID A BUNCH OF CONFERENCE REPORTS….
This week I’m doing field work with a student. I normally love it, but this week there are only very few things I want to do less… I’m too tired and stressed out to enjoy the idea, and I really need to be home organizing things and taking care of my house people who are super stressed out about everything move-related… But I have to get this done, it is the only week I can guarantee I’m here (next week partner might have some major medical stuff so we’re all stressed about that too) and if I don’t do it student will not have a thesis. So it is suck it up buttercup time… We do have a good place to stay and the area is nice, so it will be ok once I’m over the grumpiness of having everything to do at the same time and not enough time to do any of it…
This week’s goals:
Field work – be efficient, kind, and supportive, and just suck it up…
Extra points for at least trying to have a little fun with the week…
Try not to panic about all the things the house needs done to it...
Yay four fun things! That's a great way to start off in your new place. Good luck with the field work with the student. When you get that done, you can go back to the house. And don't panic. Houses always need a lot done to them, it's just part of the package, and you do them, one at a time, and enjoy the improvements . . . and then start over, alas.
DeleteUgh, student fieldwork which has to happen at certain times is HARD. I've been lucky with my current students - the one who is a year ahead is VERY efficient and a bit managing (in a good way), they were able to go on fieldwork with the larger project team, the second student was able to go as an assistant one a couple of days out with the local bit of the project team, and then they went out together for the second student's first fieldwork. I am frustrated and a bit guilty about needing to have these plans in place (due to teaching clashes, back problems, life...), but very grateful at the same time! Hope you have a wonderful time once you get there...
DeleteIn the summers, I get irritated when my work-time feels too nebulous and ever-present--the fact that I *can* work at any time means that I always have that nagging "I should be working" feeling (or maybe I'm just saying this today because I *haven't* been working very much lately!). My husband can work on his computer more or less all day long, never really stopping writing (although he takes many breaks); I don't like that. I like to have a pretty discrete chunk of time for my academic work, and then not do it the rest of the day--maybe I'll read, but increasingly (because I'm too distracted by upcoming travel to settle) I'm just reading for fun.
ReplyDeleteThis week we're at my mom's house, also spending time with my brother and his family and my dad and stepmom. Less time than usual with the latter, though: my stepmom is in the process of getting some tests done, but the likely outcome is pretty scary: pancreatic cancer. She was having stomach pains last week and went in for a scan; they found a mass; now she's got a series of appointments.... It's all quite upsetting. She's easily one of the best people I've ever known, no question, and it's hard to know what to do about all of this. She has good doctors, at least.
Annnyway. Not getting much work done this week, in short.
Here's the check-in:
Last week:
1. Clean one car so that it can be left at my mom's. - YES
2. Deal with two journal articles. - NO
3. Defrost freezer. - NO
4. Electronics & hazardous household waste recycling. - YES
5. Work out airport ride - YES
6. Try to find out what to do about the erroneous expiration date on my son's visa. - Consulate has been emailed; they wrote back last week with a follow-up question, which I answered; no response since then.
7. Something to do with work/research??? Probably not. - NOPE
8. Paint the countertops (a multi-stage process). - YES
Clear pattern here. Travel-related projects: Check. Work: No.
This week (while I'm at mom's):
1. Deal with those journal articles.
2. Read through revised essays for collection (4 of them).
...Actually, I think that's everything. I'm gonna leave it at that. I can get some work done in the mornings pretty easily because she's a late sleeper--!
I am so sorry to hear about your stepmother's troubles, and wish her and the rest of your family the best.
DeleteYou've done a bunch of important stuff, so well done on squaring those tasks! I hope you can knock off the other work this week while enjoying time with your family.
So sorry to hear about your stepmother - that must be so worrying.
DeleteSounds like you're getting a lot of niggly tasks done - sometimes that's what you need to make some space later for thinking...
It always seems that people with children work more efficiently, making good use of their child care/in the office time, and then get to enjoy their time off in big chunks. But is it chicken or egg? I like to potter through the day: do some reading, put away dishes, write something, go for a walk, grade something, take the compost out, and so on. I've always been like that. Working in an office (for a few months at a temp job) was exhausting partly because it was the same thing for hours and hours. So I wonder, had I had a child, would I be one of the people who just got completely derailed by that event, rather than learning to work efficiently?
ReplyDeleteI like to get up early and have my quiet time in the morning, but apart from insomniac bouts such as I've had this summer, for most of my career I've had to teach night classes, and then drive home after them, which makes it difficult to keep to a Ben Franklin sort of schedule. One semester, when I had a whole afternoon free between morning and night classes, I got a lot of research done by going off campus to a Panera. There's no longer anything I can order there (or in any other cafes local to LRU), so I'm going to have to buckle down in my office or else go to the library.
I think I would have been a derailed type - my brain just does not handle routine, and if I regularly have "you now have two hours to do job x and that's it" situations I really, really struggle with distraction and resentment (and of course, email goes ping...).
DeleteOur library has bookable study rooms, and some of them have very nice views over campus and the city, so that can be a good escape. And our cafes sell herbal tea at least!
In our library, the faculty carrels are all interior, so I've never bothered with one, and I can usually find a table with a window view, which is nice. The cafes' herbal teas are usually Fancy with added Unsafe ingredients, whereas all I want is plain peppermint or plain rooibos. I eat like a five-year-old with sensory issues, these days.
DeleteUgh, yes, hear you on the annoying complicated teas! Not helpful...
DeleteReport and goals.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- daily exercise and gradually push bedtime earlier: YES and mostly massive FAIL, until last night
- Two hours x 5 on research. YES
- One hour x 4 on teaching prep YES
- Half hour x 4 on dead language NO, absolute ZIP
- Life Stuff as possible: only completely routine errands, gardening, etc., none of the Big Tasks. I arranged to meet a friend for a walk in a local beauty spot, which happened yesterday.
New goals:
- daily exercise, safe food, bed no later than midnight
- 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 realizing that I tend to put off Life Stuff (except for the purely routine) because I expect it to take up a lot of time and be distracting. OK: what would it take to feel caught up enough that I could take that time? Optimally, I would just do the things like finding a new doctor, and consider them more important than work, but since obviously I'm not approaching this in the optimal way, then maybe I should try to work with myself rather than against, and get myself to a place where I feel it's safe to stop. So this is not exactly a goal for the week . . . maybe an intention. Sit with the "difficult" Life Tasks and think about what I need in order to do them; get work tasks to a place where I feel okay about putting them down for a day or two.