What Day Is It?
For some reason, over the weekend I decided that I wanted to know how many days it had been since I’ve been more or less hunkered down in my house and, based on my calculations, today is Day 47.n That’s a few days shy of seven full weeks. Or...half a semester, which is a meaningful way of measuring time in my line of work (which is to say...I have a visceral sense of what that amount of time is).
It’s less time than that that I’ve been writing these posts for you, but I am thinking about the ways in which these posts might function for you in ways that are similar to other devices I have been using in my quarantine life.
Every day, I make myself a to do list. And every day I write out the hours that I plan to be awake in a timeline that runs down the right side of that page. And I check off the items on the to-do list. And I list the appointments I need to keep on the time line. Mind you, I don’t always get to everything on the list. And some days my list is more an exhaustive inventory of Undone Things than a catalogue of what I actually imagine I might accomplish.
But I noticed, over the weekend, that I’d been confusing making my way through that To-Do list with. Actually living my life. And that seemed too bad. Not that it wasn’t helpful for me to have this hand-curated set of obligations to shape my waking hours. And it’s good to have done the things I have done. But what I was (and am) feeling...and am sharing here, is that pulling the levers that amount to achievement is not...for me...now...enough.
So I pulled back from my to do list for a day. I didn’t do any of the things I would have put on my list, except writing in my journal, which I did to try to wrap my head around this. And then I resolved that I wanted to be much more intentional (to buzz a buzzword) about how I use my tools. And today I want to encourage you towards something similar.
Tools for productivity can be helpful if they provide an assist for getting us into he flow of what really matters to us. But if they fill our time and give us a false sense of achievement without getting us into that flow, then they are not actually helping, not in the biggest of big pictures.
So. What’s important? What’s really, really important—to you, now, in the biggest of big pictures? (Let yourself go with that for a bit...it’s possible you’ll surprise yourself.) And now...what’s important to you that you want to touch today? How does your work factor into that?
If, right now, your work is mostly an obligation, then there’s no need to trick yourself into thinking it’s more than that. Simply approach it as an obligation. And imagine that your day consists of 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for work, and 8 hours to spend however you like. Give to your schoolwork the same dedication that you would give to a day job that you wanted to keep but didn’t love.
If your work is somehow different than that, then delve into how it’s different, or how you think you might be able to treat it so that it becomes different.
Whatever day it is in your quarantine life, there are three weeks of days left for you to do your work. You are under no obligation to use all of that time. But it’s yours if you want it.
Think about taking control of your process. You have the blogposts here that you can refer back to to help guide you. And you have each other (or me) to ask for help or for presence as you try things, read things, question things, or attempt to string things together.
I’ll initiate a Zoom a little before 1. Madeline, if you want to run a response to your project (woot! Congratulations again!), you’re totally welcome to time for that. And if you’d rather not, or would prefer to do it later, or just with Catharine and me, that’s totally fine. Everyone else: if you want to me, there is time there. If you want to simply check in, that’s fine, too.
It’s less time than that that I’ve been writing these posts for you, but I am thinking about the ways in which these posts might function for you in ways that are similar to other devices I have been using in my quarantine life.
Every day, I make myself a to do list. And every day I write out the hours that I plan to be awake in a timeline that runs down the right side of that page. And I check off the items on the to-do list. And I list the appointments I need to keep on the time line. Mind you, I don’t always get to everything on the list. And some days my list is more an exhaustive inventory of Undone Things than a catalogue of what I actually imagine I might accomplish.
But I noticed, over the weekend, that I’d been confusing making my way through that To-Do list with. Actually living my life. And that seemed too bad. Not that it wasn’t helpful for me to have this hand-curated set of obligations to shape my waking hours. And it’s good to have done the things I have done. But what I was (and am) feeling...and am sharing here, is that pulling the levers that amount to achievement is not...for me...now...enough.
So I pulled back from my to do list for a day. I didn’t do any of the things I would have put on my list, except writing in my journal, which I did to try to wrap my head around this. And then I resolved that I wanted to be much more intentional (to buzz a buzzword) about how I use my tools. And today I want to encourage you towards something similar.
Tools for productivity can be helpful if they provide an assist for getting us into he flow of what really matters to us. But if they fill our time and give us a false sense of achievement without getting us into that flow, then they are not actually helping, not in the biggest of big pictures.
So. What’s important? What’s really, really important—to you, now, in the biggest of big pictures? (Let yourself go with that for a bit...it’s possible you’ll surprise yourself.) And now...what’s important to you that you want to touch today? How does your work factor into that?
If, right now, your work is mostly an obligation, then there’s no need to trick yourself into thinking it’s more than that. Simply approach it as an obligation. And imagine that your day consists of 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for work, and 8 hours to spend however you like. Give to your schoolwork the same dedication that you would give to a day job that you wanted to keep but didn’t love.
If your work is somehow different than that, then delve into how it’s different, or how you think you might be able to treat it so that it becomes different.
Whatever day it is in your quarantine life, there are three weeks of days left for you to do your work. You are under no obligation to use all of that time. But it’s yours if you want it.
Think about taking control of your process. You have the blogposts here that you can refer back to to help guide you. And you have each other (or me) to ask for help or for presence as you try things, read things, question things, or attempt to string things together.
I’ll initiate a Zoom a little before 1. Madeline, if you want to run a response to your project (woot! Congratulations again!), you’re totally welcome to time for that. And if you’d rather not, or would prefer to do it later, or just with Catharine and me, that’s totally fine. Everyone else: if you want to me, there is time there. If you want to simply check in, that’s fine, too.
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