The Plan is modelled on my orals-studying strategy. The summer before my orals (which were held in early September), I worked for eight hours a day, seven days a week, for 15 weeks. I did take one or two weekends off and a few half days--but otherwise, I was a machine.
And you know what? I liked it.
So this summer, my goal--which I fully expect that I won't meet most days; that's why it's a goal--is to work for six hours every weekday and three hours every weekend-day. That time is to be divided into three unequal parts:
- one or two hours on lesson planning and syllabus work, until my fall classes are ready to go
- two or three hours on research for the book project
- two or three hours on other projects (in late July, these two or three hours will be transferred over to writing for the book project)
I also have a list of things that need to be accomplished--a much more detailed version of the one that I've put up on my sidebar--and a diary in which to log what I get done each day (I know: how very Puritan of me), and I'm hoping that this is all the organization and structure that I need to keep me from either succumbing to my native sloth or becoming paralyzed in the face of everything I have to do.
Because frankly, I hate having to self-motivate. I'd much rather someone else gave me the schedule and the deadlines and kept me on the clock. . . but since no one else actually cares what I'm doing, it looks like I'm going to have to review my own damn time sheets.
7 comments:
People who can self-motivate impress me so much. I always find that even if I make myself a schedule and a detailed plan, I don't stick to it, because I am too good at rationalizing: "well, I'll actually have more *uninterrupted* blocks of time tomorrow, so it's okay to goof off today because I'll be able to really buckle down in those bigger chunks of time." That sort of thing -- stuff you can say to yourself and it seems okay, but that another person would not let you get away with. Without an external taskmaster to keep me on track, I get derailed almost immediately. Plus, I really do get the most done under the pressure of an imminent deadline -- I find that I *can't* really focus on the task until it's almost too late. That's a large part of what made me realize I could never manage to get a PhD. Hats off to you and everyone else here who has survived a doctoral program -- clearly all better at self-policing than I!
That is an *awesome* plan, Flavia. I was just going to hammer out my own schedule today - but now I may steal yours! :)
I was talking to the prof after my computer communications systems class today.. we had been discussing cell phone networks and standards. I was commenting on how I hadn't paid attention for the past few years, and so much had changed. He told me that he has to rewrite his notes every quarter because things change so fast! Fortunately a lot of the basics stay the same, but.. yeouch.
see you in a little over a week!
-bro
Wait, I'm confused! You didn't have to do anything but your own research and prepping for fall classes during the summer? I'm so jealous.
RLB: it's definitely a learned skill; I wouldn't say that I'm natively a self-motivated person, at all, and I found my first couple of years of grad school really trying for that reason: classes that only meet once a week and where 90% of the course grade is based on a single paper written at the very END? Nothing in one's undergraduate or working-world experience is quite like that. Studying for my orals, and then starting my dissertation, were where I finally managed to take control of my own time, simply because I HAD to. It's still a struggle, but I can do it.
And Hilaire--steal away! We can compare notes in September, and see if it worked for either of us...
I found my first couple of years of grad school really trying for that reason: classes that only meet once a week and where 90% of the course grade is based on a single paper written at the very END? Nothing in one's undergraduate or working-world experience is quite like that.
Think yourself lucky you're only a scholar of Milton not somebody from his part of the world . . . in my day, being examined at the end of one's undergraduate degree was still the norm (as it still is at a few places like Oxford and Cambridge). Try classes that meet once a week where ALL the course grade (a mere 1/8 of your final degree grade, after all) is based on a three hour unseen examination taken a year later ;-)
Theodora: ooh! A chess clock! That's a great idea.
I do try to be scrupulously honest in my time-logging, but in the absence of a time clock there's inevitably there's some slippage.
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