managing distractions + taking time for relaxing

 A key strategy to maximizing my productivity is to not check email. And yet, the past week, I found myself jumping into my email immediately. Old habits are hard to break.

It's not surprising, though, given the past year and the massive increase in emails as a mode of communication. Given that I can't just pop down the hall to chat with a colleague, I send an email (though, lately, a text in order to set up a phone call). My brain has also come to associate email with doom--I literally opened my email inbox the other day with a sense of dread, and while that paricular moment was met with pleasant emails, a few hours later something terrible popped into my inbox. I tried to ignore it (chanting "I'm on sabbatical"), but it was still hard to deal with.

Anyway, I plan to return to my method of ignoring emails for the first half of the day in order (or even completely one or more days a week) to spend time on my writing and reading tasks. And since I paid for a Freedom subscription, I'll be using that in order to block what I need to block (phone apps, websites, email). If you try to go to your email when you have the block running, you get this pleasant screen:

Which, charming. I am free of the emails. I recommend buying this program if you're trying to find ways to block out the distractions--I know that they are to be avoided, and yet I still get sucked in. It's not my fault--it's all the habits, pressures, and design of technology working to disrupt my brain and steal my attention. So I've got to fight back with technology and the other tools I have access to. My next step will be to schedule my blocked times ahead of time.

Anyway, basically, I had a productive morning: I submitted my IRB (Institutional Review Board) application in order to begin my new research project. I reviewed a book chapter and figured out some recommendations for my team to revise. Mostly, I am wrapping up my deliverables from August, and I feel like I'm on track.

I'm also fully embracing the flexibility in my time to do other things besides work. After last year, I exited the spring semester bruised and feeling neglected, abused, and overworked. It was a rough year for a lot of reasons, and it continues to be rough for my colleagues, so I'm grateful for the chance to step away a little to shelter from the continued onslaughts. 

This morning, I read an article in Inside Higher Ed about using sabbatical for rest--and I agree with the points. We have so much pressure on us to do, do, do, and go, go, go, and produce allllll the things...well, it makes it hard to also see resting as a priority, even on sabbatical (which, by the way, the word sabbatical is related to "rest" or "break"). Thus, despite living in a culture that values giving all of yourself to your work and your productivity, rest is something I should be considering while on sabbatical. For me, this takes the form of playing with my kids, sleeping in a little, exercising, and reading many, many books. All awesome things.

And on that note, time to get up and move around and do a little exercise! I have to run later because the air quality is horrible at the moment, so I can stretch and counteract the sitting I'm doing with a little barre workout in my basement.

where to work?

 When you tell people you're on sabbatical, and they sort of get what it means, it usually is followed by a question about travel--which, I wish I could move somewhere else for a year! However, given the continued pandemic and my need to protect my kiddos until they can be vaccinated, where I'm working is not as exotic or interesting as it could be. It mainly involves me considering whether it's tenable for me to continue working from home in the basement or finding ways to work on campus in my office without being seen, particularly as my department is dealing with some Major Shit and I'm mostly ignoring it to focus on my well-earned sabbatical that I'm taking a giant pay cut in order to be gone for a full year.

Anyway, WFH is not so bad: snacks and tea/coffee whenever I need it, no need to pack up my lunch, access to a good computer with big screens, etc. This, of course, was my reality last year, and WFH last year, while challenging, was not too bad, given my many, many privileges, mainly having someone else to wrangle small children. On the other hand, despite not having to worry about swapping back and forth on child care, I was still irreplaceable, as I was (and still) provide milk for the youngest human in the household. This means that even with the best intentions, my day is disrupted because if the little one sees my face, he charges me signing/saying "milk!" frantically and crying until I concede. Or, both kiddos meander in to check out what I'm doing. Or I get distracted by the laundry or other domestic tasks that are literally in my same space (I work in a messy laundry room, so I'm actually taking some time to tidy up to make it feel better).

All of this makes me think that while WFH can be useful for some of the time, I don't think it'll be productive for every day. This summer, I went up to campus a few times and found that it was a GAME CHANGER: the chance to just be my work self! The lack of tiny footsteps above me! No children demanding my time or forgetting that I'm trying to focus! No spouse trying to grind the rust off of an old cast iron pan! BUT, the challenges are that if people see me, will they ask me to do stuff? (Unfortunately, I've already committed to two things--one pays me nicely and aligns with my career/sabbatical goals, and the other is fun, but I have got to say NO from here on out). Will I get distracted by chit-chatting in the hall? Will I contract COVID and spread it to my family?

I thought about trying to work at a coffee shop on occasion or the library, but now I feel the need to minimize my time in public places until the kids are vaccinated and the variant spread is reduced in my community, so maybe (maybe?) in the spring.

Anyway, I think I'll wait until after Labor Day (when the rush of the first of the semester starts to calm down) and then attempt to work on campus a few days a week, during off-peak times (like Fridays or Monday mornings). I suspect that there will be fewer faculty on campus anyway, given COVID conditions. And I'll start trying to better enforce my work boundaries when I'm in my office at home (like shutting my office door if the other humans are downstairs or listening to music to tune out the footsteps).

sabbatical + tools I'm digging

 This week, my role as director of my graduate program ended (potentially temporarily or permanently, depending on how department stuff shakes out). So I'm starting to slide into my new existence as a tenured faculty who is on sabbatical. In the past, a year of unstructured time would have made me anxious or even terrified me...but, well, I've learned some things over the past six years, and the past year of working from home taught me A LOT about productivity and work time and focus.

This week's tasks have been focused on clarifying my goals, outlining my timeline/deliverables, and beginning to organize myself. One thing I just did was clear out all my open tabs of things I want to read, adding them to my Notion workspace. While similar to Trello, Notion offers the ability to create databases and some share features--and it's free for educators (and has a downloadable desktop app that syncs across devices), so I've been using it to help me organize the articles, links, and books I want to read.

A screenshot of my Notion application on the Citations + Notes page

As you can see, you can create a bunch of subpages (with various configurations), and you can actually include a Trello-like section with boards and things to create workflows. So it really has a lot of potential, though I'm mostly using it as my writing log, citation database, and faculty reporting log.

The other tool I've been using heavily this summer has been Trello. Before reading Cal Newport's books, I didn't fully grasp how to use Trello most effectively--but then he described how he used it for administrative work, and it clicked, and it's been helping me keep my information organized and track due dates.

A screenshot of my Trello research board with the columns to do, doing, and Elon Seminar

Essentially, here I have columns for to do/doing/done (a pretty common way to track workflows), but I've added a few columns for specific projects, such as a research seminar I'm participating in (with lots of projects/tasks to organize), a column for presentations/publications, and a column for a grant I'm applying for (also with many components). Each card has information, weblinks, tasks, and deadlines, so I can consult them as needed to see what I need to do--without going on my email or looking in a bunch of different places. And because I have a Rocketbook, I can upload a PDF of handwritten notes to the appropriate card. So far, it's working pretty well for me!

Right now, I'm excited and confident that I can manage my time and have an invigorating and productive sabbatical year. I'll share my goals and what I hope to accomplish both professionally and personally in my next post!