Back to reality and hello to 2019! I was still on break on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so it was a short work week for me. While I love that academic life has built in “breaks,” it takes so much of my energy to get back into work mode that sometimes I wonder if it’d be easier to do a little bit of work each day during the break so that I’m not as drained during the first week back. This could also have something to do with Ellie’s sleep lately.
Read MoreI started writing a post about my weekly planning process and noticed that my to do list plays a significant role as I plan out my week. I thought it would be helpful to write about what my to do list looks like before I go into weekly planning.
Read MoreNow that you’re humming For the Love of Money, I’m taking a quick detour from the (academic) planning series to talk about our budget. In addition to really enjoying how people plan out their days and spend their time, I also enjoy seeing how people spend their money. Given the number of personal finance blogs and blogs dedicated to paying off debt, I imagine I’m not the only one.
Read MoreI graduated from my PhD program ~2.5 years ago and am still reveling in the fact that breaks actually mean I take some sort of break (even if it’s not for the entire break), instead of using breaks to play catch up or try to get “more” done. If there’s anything I’ve learned from grad school and also as an assistant professor it’s that working all the time does not lead to better results, personally or professionally (at least not for me!). All that to say, taking this week off from work has been wonderful!
Read MoreDuring my yearly planning process I outline when I’d like to achieve each of the goals that I set for the year. This gives me a rough timeline for the term, which makes planning pretty straightforward. My university is on the quarter system, so I have fall, winter, spring, and summer to plan for. I usually create my fall term plan a week or so before the term starts. Then, I’ll create my winter and spring plans during winter break. Because we don’t have a ton of time between winter and spring terms, it ends up being easier to plan everything right before winter term starts. Because I’m technically off contract during the summer, I make my plan once summer has started and I’ve given myself a little bit of a breather from the end of the school year.
Read MoreMerry Christmas!
Read MoreThis week felt like a heavy lift (hence the picture). I worked from home all week, which was lovely, but it also felt like a race against the clock, trying to get ev-er-y thing done by the end of Friday so I could take the following week to relax. By Friday evening I was at a point where I felt like I could take the week off and actually relax (instead of taking time off and stressing about all the things left undone). It took some readjusting and lowering of my expectations, but I feel good about it.
Read MoreOnce I have my intention set for the year, I move on to goal setting, which gets a lot more specific. As I mentioned in the intention setting post, I typically do this exercise at the end of the summer or the very beginning of fall term, but this could easily be done at the end of the calendar year (or whenever you want!). If I’ve planned far enough in advance, I might devote a luxurious full day to dreaming up all the things I want to do in the coming year and what that might look like, a little personal retreat, if you will. I find that it’s a nice way to start the school year and gets me excited for what’s to come.
Read MoreBefore I pick back up with the planning series, I thought I’d share a few quick tips that we use during our morning routine to make things go a little more smoothly!
If there’s anything I dislike more than rushing around in the morning, it’s rushing around with a toddler in the morning! Although there are only a handful of days when I absolutely need to be out the door by a certain time, we still inevitably find ourselves scrambling to do that one last thing before we head out. [Side note: If you haven’t read my other posts, Mike stays home with Ellie and we’re a one car family, so we have some flexibility in terms of time, but I do rely on Mike to drop me off at the train station.] Today I’m sharing some of the things that help us get out of the house in one piece in the morning.
Read MoreThis week was one of those weeks where I greatly underestimated the time it would take to get something done. I had a revise and resubmit due on Thursday. When I planned for the week, I blocked off all of Tuesday with smaller chunks of time on Wed/Thurs (~1.5 hour) to finish up. In reality, I took all of Tuesday (and then some), ~3 hours on Wednesday, and all of Thursday (with some advising/emails mixed in). Which meant the things that I had originally planned to do on Wed/Thurs (mainly course prep) got pushed to the side, and my work days were longer than I’d like them to be.
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