The Meta Meetings

I'm doing a 'leadership' program offered by my college this semester, mostly because it's something I would have REALLY benefited from about five years ago, but it wasn't a thing then.  I'm not getting a ton out of it so far, but I'm also not regretting it.  The assoc dean who leads it keeps meetings to an hour a month, plus the occasional optional workshop.

Yesterday, ironically enough, was a meeting about meeting culture.  I also received results of one of those personality assessment (the StrengthsFinder one).  What floated to my top 5 (the ones they ranked for us) clarified much for me.

My strengths are:  Intellection, Input, Discipline, Strategic, Relator [yes, it bugs the shit out of me that these are different parts of speech]

Here's a description of my first:  "People exceptionally talented in the intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions."  More words about roles:  thinker, philosopher, muser, longer, writer, blogger.  You think?

Perhaps not surprising for a group of academics, of the 26 of us who were tested, this one came up in the top 5 for 12 of us.  It was FIRST only for me and a dept chair in a closely related dept.  Interesting, huh? 

What occurred to me, as I was sitting in the meta meeting thinking about meetings and what pisses me off and also what feels so good about the occasional thing that goes right is that while I have spent much time thinking about my lack of knowledge in my DISCIPLINE, I haven't spent much time thinking about these 'soft skills.'  And I really should.  On sabbatical.

More later.

All the Email

I am on work email these days in the hour of 7:30-8:30 while I am also getting Tiny Boy ready for school.  He does math. I do email. He watches TV.  I do email.  Etc.  Several days this week I woke to a series of emails from my chair that he sent around 10 pm.  And then we began trading replies back and forth in these early morning hours.  He also has school-aged children.  I will say I was quite grateful that last night, as he sent the 5 pm Friday email, he also said he'd refrain from sending us email over the weekend, though we were free to reach out to him anytime (old colleague! new chair!).

I am not saying anything earth shattering. I am struck more and more by how much email=work. Organizing a visit for a guest writer? Email.  Reminding my students what they need to read for next week? Email. Revising the program website? Email. I could go on.  If email is not always itself the method of doing work, it is the method of communicating and disseminating the work. I can't think of an aspect of my job that does not entail some email.

So much of this email work is delegation or trading work back and forth.  I need a conference room reserved so I can check that off my list?  I ask our assistant (over email).  My chair needs us to read documents to contribute to our fall planning letter?  Yup, that's an email (with attachment!).

I'm even asked to do things over email that are not rightly mine to do.  (i.e. random high school kids emailing me for help with their book report)

I feel like for the most part I have reasonably good email habits.  (They could probably be better.  And I need to think seriously about how.)  But as I've been paying more attention to how I spend my time I am quite struck by how much of it is spent emailing.  Because most of my admin work involves email.  And this right here is why I absolutely refuse to accept student work over email (I've started using our course management system for some things but mostly still prefer paper)

How did faculty do work prior to 1994? (For  me, that was the beginning of email.  And graduate school.  For others it might have been slightly earlier or later.)

Anyway, if you have ANSWERS about how to deal with all the email, let's talk!

All the Meetings

In my brief foray into Twitter recently I found this piece on writing letters of recommendation in The Chronicle.  Suffice it to say:  yes.

But frankly most of the work that faculty do is unseen and/or undervalued at least in an immediate way (like, I answer a TON of email and no one gets promoted by doing email, but email translates, at least some of the time, into teaching and furthering research, which ARE valued). 

I want to whine for a moment about meetings.  (Apologies for the non-sequitur; I had my weekly night-of-bad-sleep last night, which I attribute to watching Madam Secretary immediately before bed and then spinning on all the meetings.)  Note:  it turns out I actually had a pre-existing label "all the meetings" which is suggestive of my thoughts about all the meetings.

Let's talk about the architecture of my week, shall we?  Monday and Wednesday are my 'teaching days.'  While theoretically I can work on my writing (briefly) those mornings, in practical terms, I am prepping, teaching, or meeting with students from 9:30-5.  This Tuesday, as many Tuesdays, should be devoted to writing (morning) and course prep and admin (afternoon) but in practice is ALL THE MEETINGS.  To wit:  I have  student appointment at 11:45, for a student whose schedule was tricky; followed by a conversation with a colleague whose class I observed yesterday in lieu of my own office hours/course prep time; followed by a program chair's meeting which I can't complain about really because it's the first of the year, but still; followed by a meeting with my three thesis advisees about their thesis work, including the student who has changed her topic--I kid you not--three times since September; followed by another (albeit short) midterm conference with a student who didn't schedule hers despite my passing around a physical sign up sheet in class multiple times.  So, that's 11:45 am-5:00 pm of meetings.  And when exactly am I supposed to get my WORK done?!

None of these meetings is alone a problem.  And I don't think I've scheduled any meeting that could be handled differently (email, say).  But man does it add up.  And so when a colleague asks me to observe her class a second time even though I'd like to, that's two hours I will never ever get back.  And when am I supposed to write that conference paper?

I am quite looking forward to Thurs  and Fri, which are NO CAMPUS DAYS, and the only two in a row I will have for the foreseeable future.  What I have realized is it is worth stacking my Tuesday in a horrific way in order to avoid campus entirely on Friday, because (a) travel time does add up and (b) my energy level is better.

The Evening Update (Redux)

So it turns out that I don't really have an hour in the evening, most evenings, of non-kid discretionary time. 

This week, on Monday I hung out with Tiny Boy between driving LG to and fro.  Last night I was back on campus for a talk with a legit celebrity.  It was super fun.  But also, that was 7-9 pm.  Tonight is the mirror of Monday, as Tiny Boy and I will shortly work on his homework, he'll shower, and we'll pick up LG.  There will be some time in there in which to read or something but not much.  Tomorrow I have parent-teacher conferences at the high school.  Friday is usually family night, including LG and I watching The Good Place on the computer.

*

I've also been thinking about all the things that I do that are just an hour here and hour there that add up over the course of a semester, say.  Like, I'm observing my non-tenured colleagues for review.  That's four observations, two hours each, plus doing the post-class conversation and write up.  That's more than an entire work day's worth of work.  There are a finite number of weekdays during the semester (a in a fifteen week semester).  I wonder how many other things I do somewhat infrequently but when taken together they add up (i.e. writing letters of rec, supervising a student group, attending talks/readings, each committee meeting, etc etc etc)  It's no wonder, really, that I'm feeling like my job is preventing me from getting work done.

So I'm in a Good Mood

I've been in an unusually good mood lately.  I'm not sure why.  Likely there's not a single cause but multiple causes.  To wit:

1. Hormones; I had a period last week, which I hadn't in roughly 10-11 months.  My body feels somehow more familiar.
2. The return of the regular Sunday childcare; I am feeling more on top of things at work.  Not TOTALLY on top of things, but close enough.
3. The raise at work.  It's not the money per se (I don't think) but what it signals, which is someone (my dept chair) advocated for me and that multiple someones (the dean, the provost) agreed that I merited a raise.
4. Also, this applying for jobs thing.  It's been a pain writing those documents (I realized I hadn't updated my teaching philosophy statement since I went up for tenure).  But it's also made it really clear to me what I do and why I do it.  And I've done A LOT both in terms of publication and also administration since the last time I was on the market (as a junior person).  I don't imagine I will actually get a job offer out of this, but also I do have a good track record on the market.  Hmmm...
5. I'm sleeping pretty well and mostly not taking prescription meds.  (Instead, I'm taking 1 mg melatonin + a GABA/magnesium supplement)  This mostly works.  Occasionally--and I'm not sure why--it fails  miserably and I don't fall asleep until like 3.  If I have two such nights in a row, I do switch to Lunesta (1/2 mg) just to have a better night.  (I do wonder if regular Lunesta made me cranky in a way I didn't really notice because it was just status quo. But also. Sleep is good.)
6. I'm getting back to yoga class.  Not as frequently as I'd like (that Friday 9:30 class I'd like to take just isn't practical) but enough.  I really do need to remember I can do that at home, with a video, or just make up my own stuff.
7. Compartmentalizing.  Like, I really do not need to be on work email Friday night/all day Saturday.  

And with that, I'm going to get Tiny Boy and go to yoga....

The Evening Hours

So I've stopped my time tracking exercise.  I am going to continue to pay attention to what happens in between 5:30/5:45 (whenever we get home) and 8.  There was an hour last night, roughly 7-8, in which I wasn't doing anything of any real import.  Tiny Boy was occupied with screen, having already done his homework.  He wanted me to sit next to him, which is fine....but also pretty much a waste of my time.  If I'm going to be with him, I'd rather actually engage him.  Anyway, during this particular hour, I was tired because not a great sleep night and a long teaching day.  The dishes were done.  I could have done a lot of different things, one of which is work.  Mostly I flitted between things (email, reading the NYT, laundry); none of those tasks was the 'wrong' task, but it was an hour that could have been spent more meaningfully.  My guess (I could track, yes!) is that I have about 5 such hours over the course of the week, and I could easily create a list of things I could do, depending on my energy level (that's really the critical piece).  I could hang out with my kid in a meaningful way; I could do a household chore that I want to be doing; I could read (always), do a puzzle, work on an art project.  Or what might be the best use if I'm not working:  YOGA.  I never think to do yoga.

I also realized that are some things I don't do on a regular basis (i.e. make pancakes in the morning) that really don't require any real time.  So Tiny Boy had pancakes (from a mix) this morning while I drank coffee and did the first email check of the day.  Now it's time for dinner.  And during that 6:30-8 window we'll be at a park with one of his classmates, whose mother I really like.  So win win.

Another Post Brought to You by the Sunday Afternoon Kid-Sitter

Well, I will say that this is the longest I've ever 'tracked' my time in any systematic way.  I'd say I didn't really learn anything--I really didn't learn anything--but I'm going to give it another week in which I look more carefully (that is, 10-15 minute increments, if I can) at the 'mishmash' times with kids.  The one thing I did notice (okay, okay) is that when I'm really in a work groove I don't take breaks. At all. Like, I sat down on Friday to work on a piece of writing and didn't surface for air for another three hours.  

I also think I'm at a stage in my life that although I'd like to say I don't work at all on Saturdays....I need to work a bit on Saturdays.  I did an hour yesterday, of the commenting-on-student-work variety, while we were at the vet (and Tiny Boy was occupied with a tablet) and when I had Tiny Boy and a friend at the park.  The rest of the day I was very much present on my life and didn't really think about work (even though we met a friend-work colleague for an apple picking excursion).  

Right now he's at the park with his kid-sitter.  I've been reading (this is the break) and will shortly turn to the commenting on student writing.  And then get a chicken in the oven.  And an apple crisp.  And vanilla ice cream in the ice cream maker because really it's that good.

RBOC: The Week in Review

• Thanks for your suggestions about the time tracking.  I'm still going with the general this week.  I think the next I'll look more closely (like 10-15 min segments) to see (a) what I'm actually doing when I say I'm working (computer work, not class work) and (b) what happens in those amorphous blocks when Tiny Boy is home.  I also need to rethink some times that I might be able to 'multi-task' in a different way (i.e. when I'm sitting on the floor in Tiny Boy's room while he goes to sleep; mostly I play on the iPad and stretch.  The stretching is good, at least).
• What I've learned so far:  I can account for 1.5 hours of LOST time and several of distractable work.  The distraction happened because (a) I had a major insomniac night (I didn't fall asleep until 3:30 am on Tues pm/Wed am) and (b) I had a handyman over which disrupted my mojo.  As for the purely lost hour, if I'd had my bag with me, including something to GRADE that would have been a great use of that time.  (File under: note to self. Always leave the house with work.  Even when LG says 'this will only take 5 minutes')
• For the first time this semester I have two consecutive weekdays (yesterday and today) that don't require me going to campus.  I got so much done yesterday (of the DEEP WORK sort) I am so pleased with myself.  Today should be good, too.
• I might be having my very last period.  I say this because it had been 10 (?) months since my last one.  I know I've had a period ONCE since I turned 46 last November.  I don't remember when that was (December, January?).  I really thought I was done.  I was mostly glad about that.  But now I might need to go buy tampons because LG mostly uses pads so that's what we have in the house.
• I got a RAISE, people.  Like, I was actually shocked by my new salary.  It's not high by college standards (I think it's on the high side of average for my rank in my dept) but I was significantly underpaid before.  Now I don't know if it's worth my time to do the market (there are at the moment exactly two jobs that are even remotely appealing, and really would I move with a high school junior?  Not likely.  And just using it for the chance of getting an offer and then negotiating for $$ seems gross at this point.)  This just happened last night.  I'll sit on it a bit.
• And with that.  It's Friday!  to the work!

Another Failed Attempt at Time Tracking?

I decided I need to figure out where to find those extra eight hours (if it's possible to find those hours during a time that I have enough energy to do meaningful things).  I'm using a dated diary to do so.  I started this project on Sunday, and it's already gone off the rails.

See, I have a really good sense of where my time goes on the level of the hour.  But there are large blocks (those when kids are home, say) in which I switch tasks quite frequently.  (i.e. I'm cooking, and I'm also answering email.  I'm reading for class while Tiny Boy does his math)  I don't have enough TIME to track my time every 10 minutes or so, which is really the increment at which I might actually learn something about my habits.  So maybe what I really need to do is not track ALL my time but really focus my energy on those unwieldy moments of time?  (Yesterday, I know I used an hour, which was supposed to be half an hour, for an on-the-floor [literally] coffee talk with some colleagues.  It was one of the weirdest moments of life in my department.  Ever. I'm glad I did it.  But it can't be repeated again this semester.  Or maybe ever.)

Now it's time for walk to school in the rain [Tiny Boy is watching TV right  now, having done his math without a fit.  Go Tiny Boy!]