Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2014 }{ My Goals
For me, Academic Writing Month has become a tool for developing good time management skills in order to improve my psychology of work, rather than simply a prompt to produce more than usual (see my inaugural post from last year). As such, my planned productivity for each November has gone down – not up – as I learn how long things actually take and adjust my goals accordingly. I first participated in 2012, AcWriMo’s second incarnation, and I set outlandish goals. I hoped to get every outstanding task off my desk in the space of one month. I didn’t come anywhere close, though that was the month I really got my job application materials in shape and sent out my first major batch – an exercise that I am still benefiting from to this day as I continue to base my new materials on what I accomplished back then. But I enjoyed the logging process so much that I kept it up for the next few months, which is how long it took to finish everything on my original list of goals. Last year I toned things down a bit, mostly hoping to get my book proposal done and submitted for review in the midst of another heavy round of job applications, publication deadlines, and a newborn child in the house. I got all my applications out and made good progress on the proposal, but it took until the end of December to finish and submit. Still, it was a better result than the previous year. So this year my primary goal is to be even more realistic about what I can accomplish with the time available to me this month, and then get it done THIS MONTH.
My time is much more limited now than the previous two years; I have three kids aged five and under, and I’m on drop-off/pick-up duty for the older two while being the stay-home dad for the youngest. I am generally home with the baby between 10 am and 3 pm. He sleeps reliably for 2 hours during that period each day, and sometimes as long as 4. And there are some kinds of work I can do while he’s awake. If he’s sitting on my lap watching Sesame Street on the left side of my monitor as I work on the right, then it’s best if I work on stuff that is mostly mouse-oriented, my left hand busy keeping him from falling on the floor. Two-handed typing for long stretches can only be done if he’s playing separately or asleep; and as a general rule, if he’s awake I am much less capable of sustaining intellectual engagement and should work only on things that can be accomplished in fits and starts. And since only nap time affords longer stretches of uninterrupted work, it has lately been very hard to get the ball rolling on longer writing projects – a major problem I’m going to have to sort out once I get back to my book manuscript next month. But overall the trick is to remain flexible, to adjust quickly to changes in plan, and to do the right kinds of work at the right time so that I don’t waste two quiet consecutive hours perfect for long-form writing on piecemeal items like emails, abstracts, or these AcWriMo posts.
These limitations come with the benefit of knowing pretty much exactly how much time I have to work each day, so I’m going to try something a little different this year: a detailed hour by hour budget of the month to test my ability to accurately predict how long necessary tasks will take and see if I can break even on my goals this time around. So here goes.
__________
How much time do I have?
Weekdays: 4 weeks x 5 days x 4 hours = 80 hours
- I’m home everyday for 5 hours between drop-offs and pick-ups, but for sure 1 hour will be occupied with eating, baby tending and the like. 4 work hours is wishful thinking, but I’ll be optimistic. Though I hate working in the evenings at the expense of family time, there is always the possibility to add an hour or two at strategic moments.
Therefore always validate the discount cialis cute-n-tiny.com credibility and effectiveness of the treatment. Further it had serious side effects like dizziness, loss of appetite and cheap super viagra sexual drive. Instead, you like to drink sodas, you crave pizza, frozen foods, and sugars, and you low cost tadalafil smoke. Male Disorder occurs when cheap cialis from canada you cannot maintain proper erections during an intimacy.
Weekends: 4 weekends x 2 days x 3 hours = 24 hours
- I’ve also been trying to move away from working on weekends since things are a zoo with all three kids home all day. But there are naps, family visits, and late nights to squeeze a few hours in. I’ll keep my estimate to a modest 3 hours per day and see how it goes.
Total available time: 104 hours
Quite a bit less than a standard full-time month. Now let’s see how much work I’d like to get done.
__________
GOALS
1. University job applications x 3 }{ 4.5 hours
- 1.1. Nov. 3rd = 1.5 hours
- 1.2. Nov. 4th = 1.5 hours
- 1.3. Nov. 15th = 1.5 hours
2. More job research and CEGEP applications }{ 6 hours
- 2.1. Research new postings = 2 hours
- 2.2. Nov. 11th Cegep = 1 hour
- 2.3. blanket CEGEP submissions = 3 hours
3. Post-post-doc Paid Research Project: WSP Photo Pages }{ 10 hours
- 3.1. Robson/Burrard page = 1 hour
- 3.2. Kerrisdale page = 1 hour
- 3.3. PNE page = 1 hour
- 3.4. Downtown banks page = 1 hour
- 3.5. False Creek page = 1 hour
- 3.6. Chinatown page = 1 hour
- 3.7. DTES page = 1 hour
- 3.8. Gastown page = 1 hour
- 3.9. English Bay page = 1 hour
- 3.10 Kits Beach page = 1 hour
4. Anthology Chapter Revised from Diss }{ 25 hours
- 4.1. Finish blocking out revised structure = 1 hour
- 4.2. Cut down film descriptions = 8 hours
- 4.3 Synthesize theory sections into one = 8 hours
- 4.4. Smoothing pass = 8 hours
5. Final Report for Post-doc Grant Agency = 1 hour
6. Proposal for Blog Series }{ 10 hours
- 6.1. Pitch = 2 hours
- 6.2. My Proposal = 2 hours
- 6.3. Editing other proposals = 4 hours
- 6.4. Final editing and submission = 2 hours
7. Commissioned Pre-recorded Lecture }{ 25 hours
- 7.1. Read over Grunt version and compare with MaMI version = 1 hour
- 7.2. Synthesize two versions = 2 hours
- 7.3. Add section addressing problems with WSP = 2 hours
- 7.4. Add section on unsettled listening = 2 hours
- 7.5. Smoothing pass = 4 hours
- 7.6. Recording lecture audio = 4 hours
- 7.7. Editing final copy = 10 hours
8. Bi-Weekly Meetings with Supervisor’s Working Group }{ 4 hours
- 8.1. Nov. 3 = 2 hours
- 8.2. Nov. 17 = 2 hours
9. FSAC conference proposal = 2 hours
10. Emails: 1 hour per weekday = 20 hours
11. AcWriMo posts }{ 5 hours
- 11.1. Intro and Goals = 1 hour
- 11.2. Week 1 = 1 hour
- 11.3. Week 2 = 1 hour
- 11.4. Week 3 = 1 hour
- 11.5. Week 4 = 1 hour
TOTAL: 112.5 hours (28 hours per week)
If my estimates prove accurate, then I’ll need to scrape a few extra hours together late nights and weekends to fill out the extra 8 or so. And as I’m freelancing until I land a stable gig, any paid work that comes my way will take precedence over everything on this list and wreak havoc with these best laid plans. But let’s see how my projections measure up against the hard cold light of the days to come…
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound