Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Motivation fairy, where art thou?

The semester is kicking into high gear, but somehow, it's not taking me with it. So far, I have a burning desire to do only the following: (1) sleep; (2) sleep some more; (3) read blogs; (4) go for long walks. To mix a metaphor, I've fallen off the Internet experiment wagon and need to get back on the horse.

So, without a visit from the motivation fairy, I'm posting a list of items that ought to get me moving:

  • I have some additional research money this year due to an award and need to make a more concrete plan about how to use it to apply for grants.
  • Some deadlines for conference papers, book manuscripts under review, and writing projects are approaching at the speed of light.
  • Ditto for some reference letters I need to write.
  • A colleague is going up for promotion to full, and while my nobler self is happy about that, my crabbed, envious self says I'd better get moving if I want to do this in a couple of years when I'm eligible.
  • Because my classes are enjoyable this semester, I'm spending a lot of time on them, maybe too much time, as a way of avoiding other responsibilities. Maybe preparing for these should be the reward(like a virtual dish of Belgian chocolate ice cream) at the end of the day.
  • 3 comments:

    Sisyphus said...

    Awards? Hooray for awards! Especially those that come with money.

    You know, they say to pick the one thing that you absolutely least want to do and tackle it first thing in the day for as long as you can, then when you can't stand it any more, if you haven't polished it off by then, move on to something only somewhat distasteful.

    That way you get a big chunk of the stuff you hate done, and you're so glad not to be working on the hateful stuff that the semi-hateful stuff seems pleasant and you get some of that done too.

    Of course this works best away from home and an internet connection (at least for me).

    This summer I have been positively diligent about swimming. 'Course, that means I have only been semi-diligent about dissertation-writing, which is more important, but maybe I'll change things up in fall.

    Whew, long comment!

    heu mihi said...

    Hm. I wish I had some of your desire to work on classes. So far, two days of being revved up about them seems to be my limit--here it is Thursday, and I hate hate hate that I have two more preps to get done this week!

    Maybe the long weekend can be used for working yourself back into the swing of things?

    undine said...

    sisyphus, that's good advice about tackling the worst stuff first; I will try it. I wish that the weekend had worked as a transition, heu mihi; it didn't, but I'm hoping for big things from this one.