Apologies about missing last week! I'm definitely struggling this trimester to keep on top of anything, never mind everything... sigh! Oh well, we keep going. Apologies for any wonky formatting, I got my delayed COVID booster on Friday, slept most of today and am starting a sore throat, and I'm fairly sure my brain isn't working well (I've been putting slides together for a class on Monday but I could NOT work out how to organize the topic, or how to do some powerpoint stuff I normally do with no problems, so my brain may be a bit fuzzy!).
Two weeks ago, our topic was squares, so here are some images. As a topic this week, let's talk about how we're currently getting on with the important/urgent grid - IS the top left quadrant (important, not urgent) getting the love it deserves? How do you decide where to place tasks on the grid, and how does that affect your feelings about actually doing the work? (many parts of our job move around the quadrant at different stages in the process or academic year...).
Last week's goals below the photos!
Mosaic tiles from Byland Abbey (early 13th century): from THIS BLOG
LAST WEEK'S GOALS:
DAISY:
FINISH grant and send to colleagues for reading
Do something for revisions only if grant is done
Get caught up on marking
Plan ahead for next set of midterms
Pack lunches for 4 campus days
Exercise at least 4 times
Do something fun with kid
DAME ELEANOR HULL:
- Add 1000 words to essay
- Notes on MET book and C&C read 2 weeks ago
- Grade new set of grad papers
- put garden to bed before frost comes
- do yoga at least 4 times
ELIZABETH ANNE MITCHELL:
Flu shot and COVID booster.
Finish peer review.
Pick one subsection of outline and start to flesh it out.
HEU MIHI
Travel too much
Work on manuscripts
HUMMING42 (carried over)
1 catch up on grading (already!)
2 write 1000 words for Food chapter
3 create module structure for online class
4 catch up on emails and organizing online files
JANEB:
1) do three days on campus without guilt at not being there more - especially important to NOT GUILT about it. (I actually did 1 due to sausages...)
2) don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Aim for one day with NO WORK.
3) prepare teaching for the following week (too much to do ::pouts::)
4) Rewrite assigned sections of draft paper I forgot, and complete report on thesis.
5) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for the days on campus.
JULIE:
2. Arrange meetings with PhD student and mentees.
3. Write report on research leave.
4. Spend at least an afternoon working on my article.
5. Keep teaching prep minimal again.
6. One life admin task.
Ugh! I had my week all planned out, but it has to be thoroughly scrapped. Original plans included giving my talk at the local university on Thursday, getting a haircut, and then preparing for our two-week Greece & Italy vacation on Saturday. However, child and husband have been sick since Friday (I got home on Saturday), and husband just tested positive for Covid. My throat is scratchy. I am filled with dread.
ReplyDeleteSo I've emailed kid's teacher, and I've emailed the organizer of my talk, and I'm really hoping that we can still salvage our vacation....
And I'm not creating any goals, because there doesn't seem to be much point!
DeleteOh no, I'm so sorry to hear that! I really hope you can salvage the Greece and Italy trip... and that no-one feels too terrible!
DeleteOh, that's such bad timing! Fingers crossed the trip can be salvaged.
DeleteUgh, I am very definitely sick. This is not particularly fun. In the worst case--well, second worst case; worst case is that one of us gets REALLY sick--we'll reschedule our departure for Wednesday and cut Greece short. That would be disappointing, but manageable. There are only two direct flights a week to where we're going first!
DeleteUgh, so sorry! I keep hearing about people who get Covid just before planned vacations---such a disappointment! I hope you all have very mild cases and feel better soon.
DeleteCrossing fingers for a quick recovery so you can salvage some of the holiday!
DeleteI am not doing great at priorities - I just have a big heap of obligations I'm not keen on doing, pretty much! I probably ought to sit down with the square and think about it... but I just discovered that a lab I thought was prepared is totally NOT prepared because someone moved it into a totally different place in the module and it's now before all the stuff it used to follow so I have to do some rewriting... so that's this week's second 'bump in the road'! The first one is a not great reaction to the COVID booster which leaves me more behind and tired and achy. SIGH. Maybe next weekend...
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEK'S GOALS:
1) do three days on campus without guilt at not being there more - especially important to NOT GUILT about it. (I actually did 1 due to sausages...) one
2) don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Aim for one day with NO WORK. just! and yes, but I was ill
3) prepare teaching for the following week (too much to do ::pouts::) just got that done!
4) Rewrite assigned sections of draft paper I forgot, and complete report on thesis.no and yes
5) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for the days on campus. no and no!
THIS WEEK'S GOALS:
1) do two days on campus without guilt at not being there more - especially important to NOT GUILT about it
2) don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Aim for one day with NO WORK.
3) prepare teaching for the following week (I thought it was doable until I found out about the practical, sigh)
4) Rewrite assigned sections of draft paper I forgot (very urgent now, sigh)
5) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for the days on campus.
Let's try again!
"I get knocked down! But I get up again!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egN8CjfQkxc
DeleteI hate that "not prepared after all" discovery. It's one thing when you know you have to do something, but so demoralizing when you think it's done and then find it isn't, for whatever reason.
Hope this week is being kinder to you!!
DeleteYay, Chumbawumba! Past me left at least one more unprepared problem for present me which I found this week, and I made a couple of really stupid errors, and my Head of Department "jokingly" referred to my reduced-days-on-campus schedule as "if you can't be bothered to come in..." - plus my dodgy hip joint decided not to weight bear properly after one of the my on campus days and I had to drag myself out of the car by putting most of my weight on the open door when I get home, and I weigh a lot so, sorry car! But on the other hand, I've recovered from the booster reaction, and a funding agency secretary very kindly allowed me and my grad student (who is suffering from mild post COVID syndrome) to resubmit a small grant after the deadline had passed because we had both missed a crucial bit of the instructions despite reading it multiple times, so, there were some kind spots!
DeleteI like the images! I wanted to join TLQ precisely because I felt overwhelmed by all the stuff in my life which is important but always gets squeezed out by the stuff that isn't important in that it's not stuff I particularly want to do or that is career or life-enhancing, but which tends to be urgent because it has non-moveable deadlines, or comes out of nowhere e.g. student suddenly needs a reference. I'm trying to get better at strict time allocation, so not spending more than a set amount of time on tasks, but that can be hard to stick to, and hard to judge in advance.
ReplyDeleteI've done ok on the goals so far, but I've been cautious in setting them and teaching has not kicked in fully yet, so it will get harder as term goes on.
One thing I'm curious about is what counts for you all as non-urgent and non-important - the bottom left quadrant. Part of me wonders why I would even bother adding stuff to a to-do list if it's neither important nor urgent. I suppose it could be the category of 'stuff that it would be nice to do, but there's no time for' but then maybe if it's something I want to do, I should try to treat it as important. I wonder if the problem we all have is that it's easier to know what's urgent than what's important?
Last week's goals:
1. Finish and submit the grant application. - DONE (deadline was yesterday, so it had to be!)
2. Arrange meetings with PhD student and mentees - DID, but already have to reschedule because of meeting I didn't know about.
3. Write report on research leave - DONE, but it was short!
4. Spend at least an afternoon working on my article - sort of. Not sure it was a whole afternoon, but I opened the file and tinkered!
5. Keep teaching prep minimal again - Mostly.
6. One life admin task. - chased carpenter, cleared out some stuff.
This week's goals:
1. Review and score abstracts for a conference I'm on the organising committee for.
2. Keep teaching prep minimal again - challenge here is I'm teaching some new stuff next week.
3. Keep one day for research/writing.
4. Life admin.
A lot of the list-gurus advise just not doing things that are neither urgent nor important. In my life, that's where things sit that are going to become either urgent or important at some point, so I want to keep in mind that they'll need to be done, and can maybe take care of them if I can't bring myself to do other things I ought to be doing (productive procrastination). Yay for article tinkering, research report, and grant completion!
DeleteAgree with Dame Eleanor - a great deal of the not urgent not important things eventually become both. In that category of things I have house/garden stuff that doesn't need to be done right away, like replacing things that are not totally done but close enough and then one day they break and it is urgent and important all at once... Another category of things for that quadrant are things that are not important or urgent to me personally but are both/either for other people, so those need to get done because being a good colleague or partner or parent is ultimately very important...
DeleteThirded! There are things that don't go onto the grid at all which are non-urgent and non-important; the things which make it into that spot are those which will become one, the other, or both if not tended - I see it as a holding pen, a tool to make sure I keep the tasks on the list (which is an important part of lists - freeing up both brain space and anxiety about forgetting) and that I can use the other three quadrants for making decisions about priority tasks. I see the other three as the "current" items and the bottom left quadrant as "on the horizon", if that makes sense.
DeleteI love the images, and the expansion of squares to cubes and diamonds (at least, I see the crochet pattern as a diamond). And thank you for the blog link! I love that sort of thing and may be able to use it in teaching.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- Add 1000 words to essay: YES (959, close enough)
- Notes on MET book and C&C read 2 weeks ago: NO
- Grade new set of grad papers: started, 1/3 through
- put garden to bed before frost comes: YES
- do yoga at least 4 times: YES
New goals:
- Either write conclusion to essay, or revise/smooth what I have
- Notes on MET book and C&C read 2 weeks ago
- Finish grading new set of grad papers
- Devise guides for in-class peer review
- Do some House/Life thing
- do yoga at least 4 times
Yay for the essay! That is going to be satisfying one to finish off I'm sure!
DeleteThat quilt is lovely! I’m wondering about doing something like that as a crochet/knitting project now! I like the idea of doing many squares or geometric shapes and putting them together…
ReplyDeleteI am doing moderately well at paying attention to the quadrant this term, but with the new place and new everything it is variable. I feel better about things moving in and out of it when I frame it as a conscious choice – e.g. I am not being lazy by not exercising at 6am, I am waking up and choosing kitty snuggles and playtime with the little monsters because they need social time and they are still settling in… I can move the exercise to times when they are asleep (so never!) or adjust the days in other ways.
Last week’s goals:
FINISH grant and send to colleagues for reading PROGRESS BUT NOT FINISHED
Do something for revisions only if grant is done NOPE
Get caught up on marking DONE
Plan ahead for next set of midterms DONE
Pack lunches for 4 campus days DONE, YAY FOR CHEESE
Exercise at least 4 times 3 OUT OF 4 NOT BAD
Do something fun with kid FUN VOLUNTEER DAY (she had more fun than me but I figure it counts!!)
This week got derailed in good ways. I got revisions back on the paper I submitted only a few weeks ago, the reviewers were really fast, and their stuff will be reasonably easy to deal with so that is a priority. I also have some lovely gentlemen with crowbars coming round to demolish a bathroom and remove/destroy the 1980s jacuzzi along with the scary wobbly shower so we can start over… I will be working at home and taking care of the kitties who will no doubt be put out by the scary noises. But I really really need to get that stupid grant done this week!!!
This week’s goals:
FINISH grant and send to colleagues for reading NOW URGENT!!!
Do revisions for paper that just came back
Exercise at least 4 times
Do something fun with kid
Squares-based crochet/knitting projects are really portable - the pattern for the square alone fits onto a file card, and once you've done a few you'll know it anyway, and the yarn and hook/needles for a few squares is a small package that slips into a baggie and fits in all sorts of spaces, even coat pockets - and then you've always got something productive and soothing to do in those little gaps of waiting time, or whilst in a meeting where you can do stuff (online ones are good for that).
Delete