Weekly Update: 12/3 - 12/9
Second installment of my weekly update, whoop whoop! Keeping things a little shorter on this one, no need to explain everything twice! Check out the first one here if you’re interested.
overview
Here’s a broad overview of what this week looked like.
Monday (campus): 6:30am workout at the gym followed by a day on campus. Had 2 meetings plus office hours so I chose to focus mainly on course prep and other administrative stuff as it would have been difficult to delve deeply into writing. I did spend an hour in the afternoon on the R&R that’s due soon (not an ideal writing time for me but I had a long block on Tuesday so I didn’t mind). Typical evening routine with play time, dinner, books, and bed for Ellie. We got in bed around 11:15ish - later than we’d both like.
Tuesday (at home): Got up around 6:30ish to do some blog work to start off the day. Initially intended to start my work day with a large writing block (for the R&R that’s due next week) but I had some time sensitive advising related matters that required an email check before I started writing, which then led to a three hour detour. Writing was pushed to the afternoon and the course prep that I was going to do in the afternoon got pushed to Wednesday (which I thankfully had padded in terms of time). We may have gone for a walk in the evening, I don’t remember! Mike & I got in bed around 11:00ish.
Wednesday (campus): Up around 6:15am to work out at home. We splurged and bought a weight set for the garage. I’ve been doing a mix of olympic and power lifting on my lifting days. Today I did back squats (5 sets of 5 at 105), strict presses (5 sets of 5 at 70), and deadlifts (1 set of 5 at 125). On campus I worked on the R&R in the morning, followed by some advising work and course prep. I then had 3 meetings that spanned from 2:30 to 6:30pm. Since I got home later, we went straight into dinner, followed by books and bedtime for Ellie. We got in bed around 11:00.
Thursday (campus): Getting harder to get to the gym during weekday mornings (except for Monday). Had planned to wake up early for a workout but based on Wednesday night’s bed time I decided to sleep! Program meeting and search committee work the entire day, wiped afterwards. In bed around 11:30pm.
Friday (campus): Mike and Ellie were meeting up with a friend who lives near campus so they dropped me off (quite the luxury!). Meetings all day: all school meeting, coffee with a colleague, retirement party, and open education meeting. Ended the day with emails making sure I didn’t miss anything for the week. Think I may have been the last person in the office when I left at 5!
Saturday/Sunday: A socially full weekend. Holiday parties and dinners and gingerbread house making. Did not get to olympic lifting class (in favor of family/friend time), but did do some snatch work at home on Saturday afternoon.
research
Revise & resubmit (R&R): My goal for this week was to send an updated manuscript to co-authors on 12/5. Goal met? Yes, a bit of a struggle, but got it done - again by breaking everything down into teeny tiny pieces!
Systematic review: My goal for this week was to check in with my collaborator. Goal met? Yep, haven’t heard back yet so will need to follow up again next week.
teaching
Course prep (x4): My goals for the week were to spend a minimum of 1 hour on the online research course, a minimum of 30 minutes on the condensed research course, a minimum of 30 minutes on the stats class, and a minimum of 30 minutes on the human development course. Goal met? Yes for the online research and human development courses. No for the other two. I spent a little bit of time on the condensed research course but it didn’t total 30 minutes, didn’t get to the stats course this week (but am okay with that since it doesn’t happen until spring).
Advising: I’m finding that it’s hard to set “goals” in this area, as a lot of the work feels more reactive in nature. Something happens, I need to respond, it gets resolved, something else happens… the cycle continues. It’s the end of the term, which means there’s a flurry of activity. Had a few things come up that, while not resolved, were at least attended to.
service + admin
Planning: My goal for the week was to plan for the following week. Goal met? Nope! After a day of meetings on Friday I didn’t have the bandwidth to be thoughtful about my time next week. And after a weekend of socializing I also don’t have the bandwidth to do it today. It’ll be the first thing I do on Monday morning.
meetings
Meetings: ✓office hours (x2), ✓student check-in (x2), ✓3rd year review meeting, ✓tenure meeting, ✓program meeting, ✓search committee meeting, ✓all school meeting, ✓coffee with a colleague, ✓retirement party, ✓open education meeting
personal
Workouts: Goal: 4 workouts Goal met: Not quite! Got 3 in this week. Can’t quite seem to get that Thursday morning workout in - might need to start doing it from home instead of at the gym as it gives me a little bit more time for sleep!
Toddler on the Tenure Track: Goal: Get 4 more posts up on the blog and 2 drafts complete. Goal met? Yes to getting 4 posts up (including this one). No to getting 2 drafts complete. I have one done (the second part of the pregnancy + the academic job search post), but didn’t get to the 2nd draft. When I was planning out the beginning of this blog I initially thought I’d start off on weekly basis. However, after thinking more about it, front loading posts and then tapering off to twice a week seemed like a better strategy. After the part II of the pregnant job search post is up, I’ll probably start backing off to 2 posts a week (1 weekly update and 1 content post).
Meditation: Goal: 10 minutes every other day Goal met? Yes! Still doing the Sarah Blondin ones on Insight Timer.
Budget: ✗Update December budget - may get to this later today depending on Ellie’s mood after nap!
reflection
Started off the week feeling really frustrated about the fragmented nature of academic life. Yes you can accomplish things in short quick bursts of time (I’ve certainly done it), but then I think about how much more thoughtful and (potentially) impactful the work that we do could be if we had the space to think and process and reflect and think some more. Also noticing that it’s harder for me to do the final push to get something out the door in short chunks of time (e.g., completing the R&R). I seem to do well with short bursts in the beginning and then longer chunks at the end of a project. Lots of meetings this week, plus lots of social activities this weekend mean that I’m feeling particularly exhausted. Next week looks to be similar so I’m going to need to focus on getting sleep and meditating to help rejuvenate myself.