Because it's the beginning of the semester, I thought I'd start another time tracking exercise on Monday. Then LG came home early from camp and stayed home for the rest of the week. Thanks to two friends who live in the neighborhood I was able to go to my first two classes (they came over to check on LG once an hour for the 5 hours I absolutely needed to be on campus) and I managed to get all the rest of the urgent stuff done on Friday morning thanks to a babysitter (Tiny Boy was also home, due to cleaning day at his daycare). Needless to say, I didn't actually end up tracking my time. What I did do was map out in general terms what my weeks look like. What became abundantly clear is it's not really useful to think of my week as having 168 hours.
Like most mothers of children in daycare, I have roughly 8:45-4:45 Monday through Friday to use for work. And after the kid pick up and the feeding and the bedtimes times two, I have approximately an hour each night before I go to bed; I read for about half of that (now it's material I need for work, though I'd prefer not to read with a pen in hand) and then watch a sitcom (22ish minutes!), currently Friends, while I wait for Lunesta to kick in. If I needed less sleep, or had kids who slept more, I'd have more flexible time in the evenings (indeed, when LG was Tiny Boy's age, she went to bed 6:30-7:00 pm!!!). I use extra paid childcare for evening events (roughly four times during the semester) and a few hours on alternating weekends. I anticipate having a bit more time in the mornings soon, as LG will need to be driven to school at 7:45 (I have no idea how that's going to happen...that's about as early as she ever wakes up). But, still, how will it all get done?
My job responsibilities at the moment include: teaching two writing intensive courses, directing an undergraduate thesis, directing a graduate independent study (that requries A FUCKLOAD of rereading and some new reading), being on two committees (one is a search committee, save me), acting as program director, which involves weekly/biweekly meetings with other program directors, overseeing a student organization, overseeing an intern (which should make my life easier, but still, MEETINGS!), redoing the undergraduate curriculum. And then I have six writing projects in various states of disarray, plus two grant proposals that are due this week and then one in mid-October, and I think I forgot about the other graduate students whose committees I am on (three? four? they're hard to keep track of). I think that's it?
So really I shouldn't be writing this.
Wow! This is a ton of work and you are a single mom of two, who has minimal help and is on a professorial salary. You are a total rockstar.
ReplyDeleteI am someone who is constitutionally unable to track time, calories, or anything else so finely partitioned and mundane. I find the 168-hour approach and the likes to be completely useless to me and frankly quite irritating. You are already extremely productive, as evidenced by the career trajectory and all the books you have published; it doesn't look like you need to do anything to amp your productivity, it looks like what you are doing already works really well.
I'm hardly a rockstar, but thank you!!
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm not worried about being 'productive,' if we're thinking about productivity as finding more time in which to produce work. I really don't want to do MORE and I know frankly more can't fit on my plate (I should not have agreed to that second committee, but, well, important). But I am sort of wondering how all this stuff is going to get done in the next ~15 weeks...as it's not going to be by cutting TV or waking up early.
I bow down to you. I have no idea how you do all that. And handle your two on your own. Impressive, but it sounds exhausting! I often feel right on the edge of what's possible (as opposed to tipping over into overwhelmingness) as an academic and I only have 1 little one and have a husband who shares a lot of the daily tasks. kudos to you.
ReplyDeleteI bow down to you. I have no idea how you do all that. And handle your two on your own. Impressive, but it sounds exhausting! I often feel right on the edge of what's possible (as opposed to tipping over into overwhelmingness) as an academic and I only have 1 little one and have a husband who shares a lot of the daily tasks. kudos to you.
ReplyDeleteOn board with all those that are impressed by your productivity! My problem is that the open hours don't necessarily correlate to my energy levels. So yeah, I could watch less TV, but am I REALLY going to be doing my best work 9:30-10:30 pm? No. I could just go to bed, but like you (stupid freaking insomnia issues) I need to wind down before bed, so even if I hop into bed after putting the kids to bed, unless I'm really sick or had a few bad nights in a row, I will just be lying in bed for that hour (and likely getting anxious about my inability to fall asleep) so I may as well watch some Gilmore girls.
ReplyDeleteJust counting up the hours & distributing tasks into them doesn't really work in reality as well as it does in theory.
Ana, exactly! Being on sleep meds definitely helps, but I'm aware they don't work as well if I do the 'wrong' things before bed, and that includes most work. I can read novels/memoirs/poetry for class, but certainly not theoretical material, student writing, etc.
ReplyDeleteI am ferociously protecting my mornings for work, not meetings, for this reason.
Holy sh*$, that's a lot. And I hear you on the "this is why I shouldn't even be writing this." Except: don't we need other people to reassure us that we're not really as crazy as we sound in our own heads sometimes?
ReplyDeleteI dunno, I'm pretty sure you are a rock-star. Most of us haven't published one book, much less multiple books.
ReplyDelete