Well, now we know the various forms of creative procrastination each of us has developed! Since we're at a university of Magical Instruction, it's good to remember that we all experience magic. Where do you find magic in your work. Is it in the initial vision? Some moment along the way? Or at the end? And how do you hold on to it in the less magical parts of research and writing?
Goals from last week:
Daisy
Start on figures for paper revision
Data analysis for paper revision
Data analysis for student project
Get work permit for summer field area
Last of the concerts
Comments for last thesis
Conference admin tasks
Dame Eleanor
Exercise: cardio x5, yoga at least x4. Swim x2. Trainer x1.
Work: ~3-5 hours/day on research (reading, translating, outlining, writing; focus on conference paper). Order fall books. Schedule one hour on the syllabus. List the "done."
Social/outings: vet run, campus run, book group.
Planning: book trains, message VRBO hosts with arrival times; finish assembling the tax docs; maybe get 2nd estimate on car repair.
heu mihi
1. Write LOR, read prospectus, read & offer feedback on colleague's book proposal
2. Enter ch. 3 revisions
3. Finish France album (so close!)
4. Apply for little tiny professional development thing
5. Read and prep for next week's seminar (I need to start getting ahead; it's the only way I'll survive)
6. Brew beer, re-clean house, and run twice, if I can swing it!
7. Catch up on community service stuff (figure out what to do with some emails for Sustainability Committee; small task for elementary school Yearbook Committee)
JaneB
1 - self care: move intentionally three days, do seven household tasks, eat mindfully, make sure I rest after a few hours. Journal daily, read papers about burnout.
2 - Fun - read a novel, start a non-fiction book, knit/crochet, do some art, do some D&D prep, play D&D at least once.
3 - work and boundaries - occupational health meeting, maintain boundaries and grey-rock the Interim Head of Dept check in meeting, do minimal work hours (this week I have a chapter to comment on and a stack of emails that are high-urgency and need small actions taking)
4 - work projects - nothing
Julie
1. Submit final copy of journal article - formally accepted, just need to add in references removed for peer review
2. Write report on PhD thesis for tedious piece of Spanish bureaucracy (basically a scam where I'm not formally examining, so can skim-read, but still have to read enough to write report, but don't get paid because I'm not formally examining!)
3. Collate scores for recorded presentations & chair meeting to decide prize winner.
4. Carry on marking essays, but don't rush to finish.
5. Mock interview for post-grad.
6. Real interviews for languages post (external panel member, so not too much work)
7. Book theatre trip!
8. Tidy desk
9. House/life admin jobs - aim for 3.
10. Cooking for family on Sunday.
11. Do something creative!
12. Exercise - run x 2, pilates x 1.
Susan
1. Enjoy myself
2. Do enough so that I'm not overwhelmed when I return home.
Magic in work… For me it is definitely the “middle” of projects – when you know enough to be able to start asking and perhaps answering the good questions. Working with good co-authors is magic when it goes well, when every iteration of something gets better, when a discussion over coffee leads to answers and new ways to look at or show data/interpretations/discussions… The good field days are also magical, usually the ones by the ocean or in the really nice brooks and along lakes! The rare days when teaching seems to strike a chord and help students see something differently are also pretty cool… And the nice messages and thanks and the occasional “she is the G.O.A.T of her subject” student evaluations really do stand out nicely!
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals
Start on figures for paper revision STARTED
Data analysis for paper revision STARTED
Data analysis for student project NOPE
Get work permit for summer field area NOPE
Last of the concerts DONE
Comments for last thesis DONE
Conference admin tasks DONE
I took the entire Easter weekend off… I had a chamber music show on Thursday and a big choral one Friday for Easter services and after those I was pretty done. Brought a computer home but did not open it, not even this evening when I started feeling guilty. I know I will pay for it this week but it was necessary and worth it. A major drama that unfolded this week means I am now teaching a whole extra field school in a couple of weeks. It will be fun and a lot of work and I might even get paid for it, but it means all my paper revisions have to be done in the next week and a half… Guess I should really get on those! And, in the small wins category, I went running for the first time in forever, and it was just as hard as I thought it would be, but I can definitely say the curse of reluctance is lifted and I will get myself out there more regularly now. I really have to, because the area I’m getting the work permit for is basically all insanely steep, everywhere…
This week’s goals
URGENT work permit
Continue paper revisions, aim for doing the figures first and then getting started on text
Set lab/final exams
Finish all term marking
Sort out field school stuff
Do something fun with friend
I certainly hope you get paid for your extra field school! Even if it is fun, it will be a lot of work and cuts into time for other things! Congrats on running and breaking the Curse of Reluctance! It sounds like you had a wonderfully musical Easter weekend.
DeleteWell done on the running! Hope the concerts went well. And agree with Dame Eleanor: you should be paid!
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ReplyDeleteHappy Easter/happy cut price chocolate Monday...
ReplyDeleteGood prompt, and timely! I lost most of the magic in my work over the last couple of years, and I don't know how much of that is burnout (which makes everything undesirable other than Not Doing), how much of it disillusion with my current job, and how much just that I might be done with this job and I'm emotionally detatching. Over the last few years, I've found most flow and immediate reward in mentoring, in the broadest sense, in helping others whether that's related to teaching or to research. I feel like "my" research is currently dormant and neglected, buried in the obligations of shared projects and trying to reshape work into something fundable (which always means not following my muse purely and simply). In terms of the actual steps, I really like the point in the writing when you need to sit back and redraft/reorganise/appraise the text, and turn it into the thing that will be burnished and sent out. It's creative and rewarding, and it's also something most of my collaborators struggle with in some way so I feel really accomplished about doing it. I also LOVE curriculum design/developing plans for conveying material to people - and writing talks is a tiny version of that which is also quite enjoyable. But I don't get to do much of the former any more, and the latter is currently subsumed by the complexity and challenge and increased difficulty of travelling/dealing with all the meetings stuff.
LAST WEEK:
It's not been a great week - started with the Occ Health meeting, which went very well, but was emotionally draining and the chair was uncomfortable, and I messed up getting out of the car when I got home and have re-damaged one of the muscles I screwed up last year so am hobbling around pathetically and feeling even more fat-and-a-failure than normal. After Occ Health, I was briefly feeling optimistic about a return to work, but the next morning I was struggling with pain/movement restriction enough that I had to call the cat shelter and ask them to bring NewCat to me rather than me fetch him, which they were very happy to do but it still felt horrible to have to ask. And since then I've been struggling a lot with energy/motivation/dread about going back. As usual the meeting with Interim head of Dept did NOT help (I am trying to tell myself she means well but she kept harping on "being fair to everyone" when I asked about my REASONABLE ADJUSTMENT of only being assigned my actual contracted workload of 80%FTE for next year, and lectured me on "needing to be match fit" (her husband, a full prof in our department, has an exhausting tendency to use football analogies for everything and explain them in painful detail) when I tried to explain a little about why I need to rest/what medical fatigue is like - strong implication that I've just been sitting around on my butt lazily rather than actually not being ABLE to do things...). And sleeping a lot because, very short on energy. Possibly stupid hormones!
On the positive side: NewCat (not sure if that is his nickname, he's very much a little House Panther full of lithe energy) is settling in - he's cautious but not at all scared, and last night pushed past the dodgy latch on my bedroom door to scream-meow in my ear at 3am and then thunder up and down the stairs. We're getting to know each other (I'll try and add a picture in a later comment). Also, I had a research paper meeting planned this week which obviously I needed to cancel, but it's with two friend-colleagues from other unis, and they offered to hop on a call just for a social chat/complain (so many things are going really wrong, really fast, in UK academia, especially at lesser institutions like ours) - which was really nice, both to do and of them to be willing to do it.
1 - self care: move intentionally three days, do seven household tasks, eat mindfully, make sure I rest after a few hours. Journal daily, read papers about burnout (yes - small amounts and mostly stretching, but I did move; four; no I'm struggling with that; yes had no choice; no but the days I didn't I did engage in some good conversations about life with neurodivergence online so that sort of counts; yes)
Delete2 - Fun - read a novel, start a non-fiction book, knit/crochet, do some art, do some D&D prep, play D&D at least once. half way through a novel, no, yes, no, yes, twice
3 - work and boundaries - occupational health meeting, maintain boundaries and grey-rock the Interim Head of Dept check in meeting, do minimal work hours (this week I have a chapter to comment on and a stack of emails that are high-urgency and need small actions taking) yes and it went well; no; 7 hours not counting the social catch up)
4 - work projects - nothing yes!
NEXT WEEK:
1 - self care: move intentionally three days, do seven household tasks, eat mindfully, make sure I rest as needed, journal daily, find out about Access to Work scheme
2 - Fun - read a novel, start a non-fiction book, knit/crochet, do some art, do some D&D prep, play D&D at least once.
3 - work and boundaries - employment advisor meeting (from local neurodivergent support charity; advisor is AuDHD like me and used to work in student learning support at my university, so I'm hopeful they'll at least understand some of my context), maintain boundaries and grey-rock the Interim Head of Dept check in meeting, do minimal work hours (I need to email some students, check emails, plus see 4)
4 - work projects - Mixed Volume paper's final-final deadline is Tuesday so I've promised to read over it tomorrow (Monday) to try & get SOMETHING off even if it isn't what we hoped for, and I need to write a couple paragraphs for the Consultancy Paper too. I am so conflicted about this sick-leave-but-not situation (I do understand intellectually why it annoys Interim Head of Dept!), but I CAN do these things so I feel morally obliged to for the sake of the collaborators, not for myself. Sigh.
And this should be a link to some pics of NewCat: NewCat
DeleteAlas, the link doesn't work for me: it says "Permission denied.
DeleteYou can only edit the page if you are a blog admin or the page author."
oh, I could see the picture of NewCat. I LOVE black cats. So adorable.
DeleteAnd glad you had colleagues to chat with, but Interim HOD sounds particularly clueless.
I hope the hobbling improves this week!
Awww he is adorable! Definitely House Panther material...
DeleteGood luck with meetings and dealing with unhelpful people!
I can't see him either! But also a fan of black cats. Good luck with meetings this week.
DeleteUpdated link: this might work?
DeleteYES! What a cutie! Thank you! He is a Very Perfect Panfer!
DeleteI'll be interested to see people's answers to this question! I think the magic for me is just serendipitous, nice when it happens but not something I consciously try to create. Maybe that's something to work on, or at least think about.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
Exercise: cardio x5, yoga at least x4. Swim x2. Trainer x1. YES; x2; YES; NO, she cancelled.
Work: ~3-5 hours/day on research (reading, translating, outlining, writing; focus on conference paper). Order fall books. Schedule one hour on the syllabus. List the "done." SOME? Depends on how you count “work”: I did better on small tasks and languages than on reading and writing. Did not order books or work on the syllabus. Lost a full day to back pain and napping. Some progress on conference paper.
Social/outings: vet run, campus run, book group. YES, all.
Planning: book trains, message VRBO hosts with arrival times; finish assembling the tax docs; maybe get 2nd estimate on car repair. YES (no to messages), YES, YES.
ALSO: made appt for physical, enjoyed phone call from a friend not heard from in awhile, dealt with assorted calls/texts/e-mails about car stuff, set up dinner with friends for the coming week, attempted to make paper from cotton rags (this did not result in paper, but prep took a lot of time anyway; there were a few hours of hanging out with former students in the process), returned books that will no longer renew, set up Latin readings for the group to work on while I’m gone (archive.org text to .docx format).
New goals:
--Exercise: swim x2, cardio x3, trainer x1, yoga x4.
--Work: finish conference paper, upload PowerPoint, prep Latin, order fall books.
--Social/outings: trip-related errands, annual physical, dinner with friends.
--Planning: arrange to drop off car for repairs, message VRBO hosts, pack, make sure Sir John has all necessary details.
Seems like you did a lot. Intrigued by paper from cotton rags!
Deleteugh on the back pain... seems to be very common right now!
DeleteI like this prompt! I think I'm with JaneB: there is magic in the stage of writing where you are turning something that is basically there but quite rough into the polished version. I also find a lot of magic in archives and libraries. There is still a bit of me that is excitedly jumping up and down squealing 'Actual old manuscript! I get to touch this! It's really old!' I also enjoy curriculum design, figuring out which readings to give people, which might work best to get them thinking about certain things. I felt the magic had gone to a large extent from delivery, with Covid and all the associated pressures of student demands and constant evaluation, but this last term I had students respond to teaching in ways that felt magical. I need to think about how to keep magic going: in my research, the simple answer is to actually do it, not just the stuff around it.
ReplyDeleteLast week (cheating slightly by including today as it was a holiday here!)
1. Submit final copy of journal article - formally accepted, just need to add in references removed for peer review - YES
2. Write report on PhD thesis for tedious piece of Spanish bureaucracy (basically a scam where I'm not formally examining, so can skim-read, but still have to read enough to write report, but don't get paid because I'm not formally examining!) - YES
3. Collate scores for recorded presentations & chair meeting to decide prize winner. - YES
4. Carry on marking essays, but don't rush to finish. - YES (still a lot to do)
5. Mock interview for post-grad. - YES
6. Real interviews for languages post (external panel member, so not too much work) - YES
7. Book theatre trip! - YES (today!)
8. Tidy desk - YES (again, today!)
9. House/life admin jobs - aim for 3. - 2
10. Cooking for family on Sunday. - YES
11. Do something creative! - YES (a bit of cross stitch and started a paint by numbers kit I was sent as a Secret Santa two Christmases ago)
12. Exercise - run x 2, pilates x 1. - YES, NO (teacher ill)
It was only a four-day week because Friday was also a holiday. I didn't set an alarm two mornings out of the four, and feel much better for it. We also had lovely spring weather so got out for walks and a run. Saw my brother's family, and spent a lot of time watching my 10 month-old niece.
This week:
This is only three days really, as Friday and Saturday I'm at a conference. It's being held in the big city near here, which would normally be 10 minutes on the train, except the trains are on strike on Saturday, so getting there for 9 am will be a nightmare. On Sunday, however, we are going down to London and from there to Berlin on Monday. No post from me next week therefore as I'm on holiday!
1. Carry on marking!
2. Expenses claim
3. Figure out travel to conference
4. Prep for Berlin trip
5. House/admin jobs - 1 urgent, 1 important
6. Go to friend's bookshop and buy books for holiday reading.
Oh! Yes! Manuscripts! It has been quite awhile since I've had my hands on a real one rather than digitized versions, but indeed, that is a magical experience.
DeleteHave a wonderful trip! I hope you find highly enjoyable reading at your friend's shop. And congratulations on so much YES for the week past!
Oooh old manuscripts definitely have magic!
DeleteHave a wonderful trip!
manuscripts are definitely magic. All of it! Enjoy your holiday in Berlin!
DeleteOops, it's Wednesday and I haven't posted, which tells you how THIS week is going. Lots and lots of meetings. (We've had two candidates for our Dean position, and I am concerned about the appointment.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, for me there's often magic in the archives when I see something that helps me put ideas together. But I think what I really love is the flow when I'm writing and I work things out. Then there's a hard slog at the end with the final details. I really like that Julie called out teaching: when students get it, it's really fun to be doing!
How I did?
1. Enjoy myself YES
2. Do enough so that I'm not overwhelmed when I return home. YES
In addition, I did all sorts of useful stuff when I got home, getting some stuff from my mother's storage unit for a local art sale, organizing clothes for the campus professional clothing closet, etc. All in the service of organization. So a successful week.
And in the good news department, there is a publisher interested in Famous Author, so I'm hopeful it will soon have a home.
Goals for what remains of this week:
1. Return to the introduction to Big Collaboration
2. Chase down the last 3 contributors on my list.
3. Catch up on email.
4. Organize desk
5. Do something fun
6. Eat/ sleep/ move
(I think there are other things I should put on the list but I'm still not entirely home.)
IME, hiring for deans is always tricky. I hope you get a good one. That's great news about Famous Author! Also about the organization you managed to do at home. I hope the week finishes well.
DeleteHum, somehow this didn't come up in my blog reader!
ReplyDeleteI'm at a conference and it's Friday anyway, so I'm going to call this week a loss. I'll just update on what I did last week:
1. Write LOR, read prospectus, read & offer feedback on colleague's book proposal - YES, YES, NOT REALLY (she sent it out before I could read it)
2. Enter ch. 3 revisions - YES (finished this week, not last week)
3. Finish France album (so close!) - NO
4. Apply for little tiny professional development thing - NOT YET
5. Read and prep for next week's seminar (I need to start getting ahead; it's the only way I'll survive) - YES
6. Brew beer, re-clean house, and run twice, if I can swing it! - YES, YES, ONCE (I tweaked my back, so now I'm taking a break)
7. Catch up on community service stuff (figure out what to do with some emails for Sustainability Committee; small task for elementary school Yearbook Committee) - MOSTLY
I hope you're having a glorious time at the conference!
Delete