It's summer, and I've talked before about how to plan for the unstructured time of the summer months. A scholar needs time to play in two particular senses; time completely away from work, and time for the scholarly imagination itself to run freely, to explore new possibilities unrelated to current projects. Both sorts of play should be actively scheduled in the form of vacations (weeks or months), weekends (days), and particular times of the day.
If you don't actually schedule play, you will sit around the house or let yourself be consumed by household repairs.
For me, going to Spain provides a good opportunity for relaxing. I usually have one or two business things to do there, like the dissertation defense I'm on for my next trip. I also like hitting the bookstores and buying books I want or need. The rest of the time is seeing friends, eating good food and drinking good wine, and traveling. After a trip like this, the work goes much better.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Productivity
The only things academics produce are publications. Those are the only widgets we make. Productivity in teaching would be what, the number of students taught? Then a large section is always more productive than a small one. Power-point lectures to 400 students are the most productive. Once again, then, teaching and research are defined so differently that the very definition of productivity is wildly different: the graduate prof with a lot of publications is likely to teach fewer courses with fewer students and be less productive, however brilliant her teaching.
Economists talk about productivity as how much work each employee can churn out per hour, so that is a measure of efficiency.
One of my goals this summer is to learn to distinguish, by ear, the various palos of flamenco, because I want to teach a course on this some day. This is productive work but not efficient. All the work on the scholarly base seems highly unproductive, in fact, because it doesn't lead directly to articles and books, and only some of it filters down into classes taught. I could never justify all my work on the scholarly base in the management-speak of "productivity."
Economists talk about productivity as how much work each employee can churn out per hour, so that is a measure of efficiency.
One of my goals this summer is to learn to distinguish, by ear, the various palos of flamenco, because I want to teach a course on this some day. This is productive work but not efficient. All the work on the scholarly base seems highly unproductive, in fact, because it doesn't lead directly to articles and books, and only some of it filters down into classes taught. I could never justify all my work on the scholarly base in the management-speak of "productivity."
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Multiple Projects
I have to admit that my main method of dealing with multiple writing projects is not to have multiple writing projects. I am very bad at thinking about more than one thing at a time. Whenever possible, I have a single item on my list of things to write, or I work sequentially on projects, putting one to rest before I start something else. Of course, life sometimes devises other plans for me and I have to think about more than one thing at a time.
So my advice is first: don't do it. Secondly, if you have more than one thing to write, order them sequentially and get the smaller projects out of the way as quickly as possible to get back to the main enchilada. Never spend longer than a week on a book review or a peer review. The main enchilada is always the dissertation or the book project.
So my advice is first: don't do it. Secondly, if you have more than one thing to write, order them sequentially and get the smaller projects out of the way as quickly as possible to get back to the main enchilada. Never spend longer than a week on a book review or a peer review. The main enchilada is always the dissertation or the book project.
Efficiency
One way of looking at the problem of efficiency is to fit the most work into the least amount of time.
This isn't quite right, though. Let's try this again.
There are 168 hours in the week. What you need to do is find between 6 and 15 very good hours of writing somewhere in these 168 total hours, where three two-hour sessions, (MWF say) and five three-hour sessions, (MTWTF) are the minimum and maximum. Looked at in this way, the problem is finding the best 10 hour out of 168. The problem, then, is having too much time, not too little. It's a problem of finitude. Let's cross off 56 hours for sleeping. That leaves 112. Much better. Now you only have to choose the best 10% of your waking hours.
There is no point in writing during the time of day when you are feeling the worst. If you work well in the morning, take advantage of that. Since there are plenty of hours in the week, the problem is not really time at all, but energy. A morning hour might be four times better than a 4 p.m. hour.
This isn't quite right, though. Let's try this again.
There are 168 hours in the week. What you need to do is find between 6 and 15 very good hours of writing somewhere in these 168 total hours, where three two-hour sessions, (MWF say) and five three-hour sessions, (MTWTF) are the minimum and maximum. Looked at in this way, the problem is finding the best 10 hour out of 168. The problem, then, is having too much time, not too little. It's a problem of finitude. Let's cross off 56 hours for sleeping. That leaves 112. Much better. Now you only have to choose the best 10% of your waking hours.
There is no point in writing during the time of day when you are feeling the worst. If you work well in the morning, take advantage of that. Since there are plenty of hours in the week, the problem is not really time at all, but energy. A morning hour might be four times better than a 4 p.m. hour.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Breaking Ground
A new blog here by Matt Mullins, a frequent reader and commenter of this blog. Matt wants to do what Thomas, Tanya, and I are doing, more or less, but more focused on the scholar in early career (grad student and assistant professor).
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