Back at it

One of the obvious disadvantages of getting sick (Covid in my case) is that your work piles up. That’s not the case for, say, a delivery driver, where they’d find a substitute driver rather than let all the packages build up. Nothing goes away when I get sick. I have to find a way to fit more work into an already overscheduled day. A few examples:

• I have to make up the missed lectures.
• Advisees still need to meet with me.
• Email inquiries about our grad programs need to be answered.
• Administrative work for the grad programs still has to be completed.
• New papers need to be sent out to reviewers or desk rejected. Old papers still need new reviewers when someone doesn’t come through. Inquiry messages need to be sent.
• Coauthors need my comments and contributions to our papers.

It helps that I have all my projects in order in the appropriate software. I can consult my projects list and identify things that have to get moving.

The key question I ask of every task is: “How long can this thing wait?” If the answer is that it can wait until at least next week, I don’t even think about it.

My tasks fall into these classifications:

• Fires that need to be put out. Sometimes a deadline has passed or is coming up rapidly. These get handled ASAP. They’re the priority for the first day back.
• Stuff that should be handled soon but doesn’t absolutely have to. I make a list of them and try to get to them by the second day.
• Normal stuff like teaching my classes. This is already on my calendar.
• Everything else. I schedule some of them, but most are left sitting.

As a rule, I try not to construct a pretend schedule. There’s only so much you can do in one day. I don’t take fake schedules seriously because I know I can’t complete them. I try not to do only the things that suck. Yeah, they have to be done, but if I’m going to postpone something, it’s going to be the thing I don’t want to do. I avoid a schedule that requires rushing from one task to another back-to-back all day. That makes me less productive because my brain burns out quickly.

True minimal theme