In the past at around this time of year, shamelessly borrowing an idea from Laura at Geeky Mom, I've made resolutions for the new academic year. I've been trying to think about what I want my resolutions to be this year, but I've had a hard time of it.
Maybe it's the stress of the tenure year that's making it hard for me to focus (on anything, really, for that matter). Maybe it's a bit of summer angst---you know, summer is over and I had all these big plans and ideas and how many of them came to fruition? (Actually, quite a few---I'm pretty proud of what I accomplished this summer, work-wise. Relaxation-wise? Not so much.) At any rate, I've left the summer feeling like my life is still pretty much out of balance (still), and that's weighing on my mind quite a bit.
If I could come up with resolutions, they'd be all about getting at least a bit of balance back in my life. But simply saying "I will bring balance back into my life" is not going to work---it's just too vague. I need something more concrete.
So I started thinking about this question differently. What would an ideal "balanced" day look like, realistically, in my life? How can I make sure that my work gets done (and gets me tenure), make sure that my family's not neglected, and make sure I take adequate time for myself (exercise/sleep/relaxation/relationships), all within the confines of a 24-hour day?
(Hey, it's another constrained optimization problem!)
I haven't come up with a workable model yet, but so far yet I know that the ideal day must contain the following:
- Time for exercise---even if it's just 10-15 minutes for yoga. This has to happen every day for me---mentally, I *need* it.
- Family time---getting home at a decent enough hour to have a couple of hours for dinner/play/bedtime routine.
- Sleep time. I need 7 hours to be effective. This means being smarter about how I spend my time in the evenings.
- Work. This is obvious, I know, but I'm really interested in making sure my work is confined and that it doesn't creep into every available free hour. Particularly so that it doesn't eat up my weekends and every single evening. And that I give enough time and attention, and the right mix of time and attention, to teaching and research.
So I'm still hammering out the details but I'm getting closer to something I think might work, that I'll stick with even during the rough weeks. I'm actually coming up with variations, too: teaching days vs. non-teaching days vs. weekends, days with evening commitments vs. heavy meeting days, etc. The important thing, though, is that I really want this to work because I really, really, REALLY want some semblance of balance back in my life. I want my weekends to be weekends, not catch-up-on-work days. I want to spend an evening or 2 a week with Mr. Jane, or friends. I want to make sure I get to bed at a decent hour so that I'm not running on fumes. Is that so much to ask?
What does your ideal, balanced day look like?
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Hi!
I'm surprised no one has posted anything! I guess people are uneasy about sharing their resolutions. I have two work related goals. My department is really pushing publishing in journals. For my field, conference proceedings seem to be as good or better so I haven't really focused on journals. But the word from above is that everyone's average should be two journal publications a year. I don't know about other people, but this would be being EXTREMELY productive for even the stars in my field, but hey, I can go for it. I also don't see how you can average two a year if you don't submit at least three, so to be on the safe side my pie-in-the-sky goal is to submit four a year.
The other goal is to reach out and touch other people working on the same topic. I think I've been so in awe of other researchers that I haven't dared write to them before, even when I had important questions about their work. But I recently saw through google scholar that a number of people from the "other" theory have cited my work. Because the attitude of my adviser and other proponents of the theory I work with were so negative about those researchers, I never considered contacting them. In retrospect I find it very strange. We are such a small community. If we really want to make advances in the problems we deal with we should be in contact with people doing relevant work, even if with disagree with their approach.
So my two goals are:
1. Submit three journal articles before Christmas, and next year aim again for four (one already submitted this year, one almost ready to submit, one in the data collection stage and one has to have a number of additional experiments run before the work is completed)
2. Make contact with four key researchers working on the same problems I'm struggling with. I have a pile of papers with big question marks and comments scribbled on the work. I should send them an email, see if I can start a dialogue, and maybe turn some of these names into "colleagues".
Those are my work-related resolutions. Anyone else want to contribute?
/JKS
Wow, JKS, those are great resolutions! I especially like your very specific plans to reach out to other researchers---I may borrow that idea from you. Best of luck to you!