What Happened to My 2019/2020 Plans?
Just a quick note before you head into the blog post. Are you an academic who is trying to figure out your long term planning processes? My planning course, plan(it)*, can help support you as you figure that out. Check out the link for more info.
This academic year has been a perfect example of embracing fluidity in the planning process. Although structure is one of the reasons why I plan, structure doesn't necessarily mean rigidity. I want my plans to work for me, not against me!
I usually do my winter and spring quarter planning in December, after grades are in. However, this past December it was all I could do to figure out what was going to happen the next day, let alone over the next few months. The idea of creating a specific winter/spring quarter plan didn't cross my mind. Plus, right after last summer's plan(it)* I mapped out (at a high level) the entire year during my yearly planning session. That meant I already had a pretty good idea of the things I'd said I wanted to make progress on (pre-pandemic and family crises).
Granted, even with those plans, I didn't look at them. The goals I set at the beginning of the year weren't going anywhere. I dropped all expectations of meeting any of the goals I'd set and just focused on doing the things that felt good and saying no to what didn't. If that happened to include my previously identified goals, cool. If not, also cool. I let go of the mental part of planning and focused on what my body was telling me instead (turns out it knows me pretty well).
Here's how my plans shifted (and how things stayed the same) across research, teaching, service, and personal life.
Research
Submit first authored paper in December ⇒ absolutely not. I did pick back up with working on the paper in March after in-person research was stopped.
NIH funding application due in February (or August) ⇒ considered the August date but that felt like too much. I decided to forgo the application.
IRB submission/data collection ⇒ pushed pause on this in November/December. Started working on it again in February and then pushed pause again in March when the pandemic hit.
Foundation funding LOI due in June ⇒ this was actually something I recently added. In May I got an email about a call for proposals that aligned with some work I already had talked about with a collaborator. After a string of other opportunities had crossed my path in prior months, all of which made me feel panicky about how I'd get them done, this one seemed manageable. Plus, the full proposal happens to be due on what would have been my dad's 76th birthday. I took it as a sign and decided to go for it.
Papers, conferences, book chapters (where I'm not the first author) ⇒ I had three papers that I knew would hit at some point this year because we'd been working on them before the school year started. Two papers were accepted before November (when everything got turned upside down for me). And then one paper was submitted in April but didn't require much on my part. I also had an unplanned conference submission from a project I worked on as a doc student. The faculty member who led the project reached out to see if I'd be interested in taking part in a presentation. Finally, one of my current colleagues reached out about joining her on a book chapter. Also not in my original plans but the topic and timeline worked out, plus I really enjoy working with this person. All I can say is that I'm really grateful for a wonderful network of collaborators, current and past, who continue to pull me in on projects.
Teaching
Honestly, nothing changed here. I was slated to teach online during winter and spring terms and had fall off from teaching (thankfully). I thought about taking time off during winter or spring term to head back east to help out, but decided against it, and then the pandemic hit, so I was definitely staying put. I prepped for and taught 3 courses (total) during winter and spring terms. Thankfully I wasn't teaching anything completely new to me. I did have one course that I was teaching online for the first time, so there was definitely more involved with that one. But, because I'd taught it numerous times in person, it wasn't completely brand new to me.
Service
In early March, I pulled myself off all of service activities for the remainder of the school year except for my lead instructor role.
Personal
I doubled down on health/nutrition, meditation, and sleep. Up until about mid-June I was regularly lifting 3 days a week (taking a bit of a breather now). I’ve also been meditating for 15 minutes every morning and have been (fairly) consistent with 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep each night. These pieces have helped so much. I'm continuing with the blog (obviously) but have shifted my posting schedule to align with my capacity (e.g., no more weekly updates).
None of these shifts were necessarily pre-planned decisions. I just took things one day at time, continuing to work on the things that didn't push me into a panic and saying no to everything else.