During the school year, when I’m working nights and weekends just to keep up with teaching and service duties, I always think the summer is going to be full of butterflies and kittens while works of brilliance shoot out of my fingers into my laptop. \u00a0I imagine high impact papers flowing quickly and easily from my brain to the editor’s desk to be met with tears of joy at the recognition of the brilliance I have shared. \u00a0I also imagine happy children in a clean house with chores and crafts all checked off my list.<\/p>\n
Clearly, I am delusional and have had either too much or too little coffee\/sleep\/food\/exercise\/wine.<\/p>\n
In fact, I already put together my work and home “To Do” list for the summer and freaked out during finals week about “how far behind I was” and the summer hadn’t even started.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, I’ve already checked a few things off my list despite grading 150 undergraduate papers, attending the Organizational Science Summer Institute<\/a>, and, unfortunately, discovering Candy Crush. If I can keep this up, I think I might actually have a productive summer.<\/p>\n There is no real secret here, except aiming for regular, smaller<\/em> amounts of work with regular, scheduled breaks in the day. \u00a0I’ve put together a combination of tricks\/habits I’ve gathered from How To Write a Lot<\/a>, the Pomodoro Technique<\/a>, and this article on the importance of rest and breaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Practically, what it means for me is that I have a list of things I plan to do each week, which I put on Evernote<\/a>. \u00a0I divide them up into what I plan to accomplish each day, along with \u00a0check boxes (control-C on Evernote) that represent \u00a030 minute time periods I will use to accomplish this task. \u00a0 For the big research projects, I put 3 boxes, representing both the Pomondoro breakdown in work units and the advice on working for 1 1\/2 hours and then absolutely taking a break. (I also have Focus Booster app<\/a> on my laptop set for 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break) \u00a0I plan for 3 one-and-a-half hour chunks of writing and research a day, with the rest of my time spent doing email\/phone, administrative stuff, teaching prep, blogging, exercising and some gardening.<\/p>\n Doing that, one week into the summer, I am “two weeks ahead” on where I thought I’d be. \u00a0Of course, the process only works with my booty in the seat and a To Do list to guide me. \u00a0But I have a strategy and a plan and I am hoping to have a very productive summer. I’d love to hear what other folks do to keep themselves productive and sane over the summer. \u00a0We can all benefit from others’ experiences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During the school year, when I’m working nights and weekends just to keep up with teaching and service duties, I always think the summer is going to be full of butterflies and kittens while works of brilliance shoot out of my fingers into my laptop. \u00a0I imagine high impact papers flowing quickly and easily from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-3M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":264,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2014\/06\/20\/online-classes\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":0},"title":"Online Classes","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"June 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I would love to start a discussion of online classes in this post (so I must remember to turn on comments). So, I just finished my second online class. \u00a0Despite being someone who studies online groups and who has been on email since ((gulp)) 1984, I have not wanted to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":267,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2014\/07\/10\/mom-working\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":1},"title":"Working Mom","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In conjunction with my personal blog, I'm posting about my summer \u00a0work schedule. \u00a0This\u00a0entry focuses on the \"Working\" aspect of being a professor who is also \u00a0a mother (i.e., a MoFessor). Academics know that the summer is supposed to be our most productive working time, even though many of us\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":184,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/05\/10\/aspirational\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":2},"title":"Aspirational","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"May 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The final papers for my writing and thinking class are starting to arrive. \u00a0I don't know whose bright idea it was for the due date for the papers to be two weeks after the last class because I am already feeling the summer schedule. \u00a0Oh, yeah. \u00a0That was me. \u00a0Well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":243,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/10\/11\/football-at-unc-charlotte\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":3},"title":"Football at UNC Charlotte","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"October 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So, a lot of disclosures here: 1) \u00a0I planned on writing this BEFORE I was chosen to be a faculty coach. \u00a0(read what that is and my personal thoughts about that here) 2) \u00a0These are clearly my own thoughts and not those of anyone else at UNC Charlotte. I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":274,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2015\/04\/14\/productivity-hints\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":4},"title":"Productivity Hints","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"April 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It is ironic that I am writing this blog entry today. \u00a0My 5 year old twin son is home sick with a tummy bug and my \"productivity\" is suffering as I hear the strains of \"NinjaaaaGO!\" \u00a0And \"Go! Go! Samurai!\" wafting up the stairs from his resting place on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/08\/30\/katniss-everdeen-is-not-a-transformational-leader\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":5},"title":"Katniss Everdeen is Not A Transformational Leader","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"August 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This summer, while teaching my Introduction to I\/O Psychology course, we had a discussion on different leadership theories. \u00a0When we discuss these theories, it helps for me to have examples of different well known leaders so that the kids can see the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical perspective. \u00a0Some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}