Keeping the Sunshine

If you asked me if I liked summer 6 years ago, I'd have said no. It's hot in the summer.  That summer of 2012 was hot, and we had a two year old, and I had a husband working the evening shift at a job he hated.  So I got to go to work each day teaching my summer class and doing research, then I got to go home and enjoy being a single parent.  It wasn't fun.

I still think summer is hot.  Growing up in Florida, you didn't need a degree in meteorology to predict the weather - it was going to be hot and humid, and then in the afternoon, it was probably going to rain.  But not a cooling rain - just enough rain to make the pavement steam and make the humidity worse.  To me, summer meant no school, but it also meant bugs, and sweat.  Midwest summers are kind of like opening a grab bag every year.  Will it be hot for months or will it be pretty nice with only a week or so in the 90's? Will we have rain or will there be water worries?

Since my husband started teaching high school, summer has taken on a whole new meaning.  Before you say that it's because we're both teachers and we are enjoying the summer off, let me tell you that every person who says that to me gets mentally punched in the face.  Neither of us has ever taken a summer off.  But, we work less.  We eat dinner later.  And with Ian getting older, we are finding a new freedom that hadn't existed.  Or, I think it existed before we had Ian, but we didn't appreciate it.  It's having sandwiches for dinner and popsicles for dessert.  It's making a spontaneous trip to the pool or the lake (we're on a beach-finding mission this summer).  It's letting Ian stay up until 11pm because the outdoor movie showing in the park didn't start until 9:30 because it's light out until then.  And it's going to bed when we're tired and waking up with the sun, not an alarm clock.  So yeah, I think summer is pretty awesome now.

Last summer, I started mourning summer in late July.  I knew that the days of Dave getting home right before we needed to do something because he was held up by a student needing help were coming.  Of me being late because one of my students needed something, or faculty meeting, or one meeting that bled into another.  Of eating dinner when we weren't really hungry because there was soccer or Scouts to get to.  Of homework and bedtime and making sure that everything was ready for the next day because if it wasn't the morning would be crazy.  Of days where we went to work, came home, and went to work again.

And it's starting earlier now.  It's mid-June and already I'm so in love with our schedule and our way of life (ok, but not the heat - this 100 degree weather can GO AWAY!) that I don't want to give it up in August. So I'm desperately trying to figure out how to keep it.  Or maybe how to keep some of it.  I have some ideas, but keeping a blender in my desk for a pina colada between classes doesn't seem practical. I think this is where my work on myself is going.

I am working on focusing on one thing at a time so that maybe if I get more done at work, I can just BE at home.  Last year, for the sake of my stomach (and bouts of gastritis in recent years) and my sanity, I'd stopped working late at night.  It wasn't efficient - my brain shuts off on complex tasks - but the MENTAL real estate  that work thoughts took up was still tiring and sometimes overwhelming.  The last few weeks I've been working on not just mono-tasking, but mono-thinking.  Like meditation, but I'm not sitting in a lotus position all the time.  I try to focus mentally on whatever I'm doing, whether that's work or leisure, and to actively try to redirect my brain if I notice myself getting distracted.  Like the dog in Up, my brain was really getting to the point where some days all I did was yell "Squirrel" every 5 seconds.  This is definitely a work in progress, but it's getting easier.  I'm hoping that this means that if I stop working at the end of the day that I'm more present with Ian and Dave and not physically there and mentally a million miles away.

The thing that I want to think about the rest of the summer is how to not lose the sense of fun and spontaneity in the busyness and endless to-do lists of the regular year.  To live on island time, year round.  It might not happen this year or the next or the next, but I think that it's a goal worth pursuing. And it won't get me fired like day drinking probably would.

Controlling Pavlov

Or Pavlovian responses, anyway.  If you don't believe that those experiments with the dogs proved anything, just try to only look at your email 3 times a day.  Almost everyone is conditioned these days - if a message pops up, you must answer it! Now!  I ran into this on Monday.  Yes, that was day 2 of mono-tasking.

I made my 3 goals.  I did my morning email check.  And then I ran into tasks that required me to dig through my email.  And...I couldn't ignore the new messages!  I couldn't just search for what I needed.  The new messages were there, taunting me.  Telling me that I was going to be perceived as a summer slacker if I didn't respond.  So I told myself that I'd just respond the once to the messages that I had.  But then, the sender was on their email and responded before I finished.  And then the new quandary - they KNOW I'm on my computer - do I answer? Would it be rude not to?  You see where this is going, right? Yes, I accomplished my goals, but I kept returning to my damned email.  And a couple of times, I caught myself surfing as if I were truly at a designated time.  But I did stop myself on that until I'd finished as much as I wanted to on a task (my Monday goals are a little longer term, but I still wanted to make progress on all of them).

How did I do yesterday? A bit better.  I realized that even though I'd done things on Monday, I was definitely not as relaxed as I'd been on Thursday.  Today I had 1 specific thing that I wanted to finish completely.  It didn't require the internet, just powerpoint, so it was pretty easy to stick to the "no email, no surfing" rule in the morning.  I finished the project without losing focus, which was nice.  Then I felt slightly guilty when I checked my email at 1 to realize that someone had needed something at 9am (after I'd checked my email for the morning).  Then I realized - I felt guilty for making someone wait 4 hours for my response.  4 hours. Clearly, I have issues.

But I have to say, that certain things are getting easier.  I might have interspersed work with email (task switching) on Monday, but I'm getting pretty good at not trying to focus on 2 things at once.  When I'm helping Ian practice piano, I'm really in the moment - not checking my email, surfing Facebook, or playing on my phone the way I used to do.  This morning, I decided to start on my main task before I took Ian to swim camp then do yoga, then work on the task until it was finished.  I managed to focus and meditate during yoga, but it was much harder than the mornings where I got out of bed and did it first thing. I was almost 15 minutes in before my mind stopped wandering back to my task in between wondering if trying to become more flexible, literally and figuratively, was wise.

So I'm still a work in progress and I'm sure it's going to get harder when things ramp up in the fall.  I have found that, much like sitting in a Krispy Kreme shop with the "Hot Now" sign flashing, I have virtually no self control.  So before you start thinking that I sound holier-than-thou about all this, please realize that my methods are akin to moving to a place where the nearest Krispy Kreme is at least an hour away (hi Emporia).  I didn't check my phone while Ian played piano today because I had to leave it in another room - otherwise I'd look while he was tackling Take Me Out to the Ballgame for the 100th time.  I open a different window of Safari and don't open my email accounts when I'm working on something else because I don't have the self control not to check if I just open another tab.  I moved my email, FB, and Snapchat apps to the 3rd screen on my phone so they aren't taunting me with notifications every time I glance at my phone.

Now I just need to work on my email guilt.  That might just be harder than limiting my checking...

Day One of Monotasking - Do They Make a Patch for Facebook?

So when last I wrote, I talked about the little changes I was making to stop task switching when I could help it.  And, eager to get started, I embarked on work last Thursday with enthusiasm.  I was going to mono-task the shit out of Thursday!

What I Tried To Do

1. Email checks only 3 times a day - once when I got to work, once at lunch, once before I went home, and once before bed.  Ok, that's 4, but only 3 times during the workday.

2. Any non-task related internet was a no-go during non-email break times.  So, I could look up something specific if it helped me with what I was going (for example, logging into a mutual fund account while I was working on taxes for a society that I'm treasurer of), but no Facebook, no people.com, no blogs, no Elephant Journal (dang I love that site), unless it was during one of my email breaks.

3. If I got interrupted by someone, I stopped whatever I was doing to focus solely on that person.  No glancing at my computer, no reading an email.  

4. I listed this last, but it might have been the most important thing - I made a list of 3 main tasks.  I read an article somewhere in all my reading on the multitasking topic that was genius.  So genius that I can't remember the link to the article.  Anyway, it recommended that you make a list (preferably even the night before) of 3 things you want to accomplish that day.  That's it.  No matter how big your to-do list is.  The article explained that it would focus you and if you got distracted by other things, it reminded you that you had 3 things that you'd identified as the most important things that needed to get done. I actually did 3 main goals and 3 gravy goals - things that would be nice if they also got done.  During the day, I noticed that I would be reminded of other things that I needed to do (usually through email).  I wrote these at the bottom of the page.  That way I didn't have to let them distract me from the main 3 goals, but hopefully I won't forget them either.

Did It Work?

YES! I was successful at most of the things - I did take a FB break between the morning and lunch, but that was it.  I got all 3 main goals done and 1 gravy goal, and these weren't small main goals - I had listed that I wanted to design and record lectures for 2 topics in my class and to get together all of the tax materials for the society.  The tax thing took me 3.5 hours and I worked straight through that.  Now, again, I realize that Thursday was also kind of an ideal day for this - I was motivated and there's virtually no one around.  But I did have 2 phone conversations and an in-person conversation and I didn't check my email or mess with other things the way that I normally do - I listened!

At the end of the day, I felt like I'd gotten things done and I was relaxed.  So I'd say that's a win.  It will be interesting to see what happens when things get more hectic.  i don't want this post to come off as Pollyanna or preachy.  I fully understand that I'm in supper utopia right now.  But I am hoping that some of these changes will stick most of the time even during the regular semester.

Oh, and I'm trying not to multitask at home too. Mono-tasking FTW!

Three years, different person, and my newfound hatred of multitasking

I spent some time rereading some of my old blog posts recently.  First of all, the last time I blogged was fall 2015.  I am surprised, and I'm not surprised.  The last three (academic) years of my life have been a rollercoaster.  I have wanted to quit.  I have wished a million and one times that I'd never created the program that I've started.  I've been scared, proud, defeated, ecstatic, angry, sad, satisfied, and elated.  Just like having a child, I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.  I survived the first class of our program, I enjoyed the second, and now we're halfway through the third.  And I think that I've become a different person in some respects. Maybe that's the program, maybe that's getting older - who knows.  Either way, it's not a bad thing.

This past year, I taught a double teaching load both semesters and mentored quite a few research students as well as running the program.  I thought I'd managed everything pretty well (I didn't hit the 80+ hour workweeks I had in early 2016 which pretty much cost me my sanity, and the lab didn't burn down), but I really felt burnt out by the end of spring.  Like I just had no craps to give any more.  I felt like things had been accomplished, but I was perpetually stressed because all I did was juggle.  And I felt that I hadn't done any of it very well.

After the end of spring semester, I was able to work at a quieter pace, mostly from my home office.  I could focus! No one was popping in to talk, ask a question, ask me to solve a problem, etc. (Now, I love my students and I love my colleagues, but have you ever had a day where it felt like all you did was answer questions and solve problems and at the end of the day you were still left with the same pile of work that you started with? Yeah, there were a lot of those days.) I felt like no one task or person got my full attention. And while stuff got done, I felt like my days of eating lunch while prepping for a class while answering some email with a student in my office at the same time were not sustainable.  I wanted to give someone asking a question my full attention. I wanted to focus on 1 problem at a time. This really hit home for me this week when, after a few weeks of working peacefully, I had 4 groups of people who all needed things seemingly at the same time.  I realized then that I wasn't willing to go back to the craziness.

I actually started out googling articles on multitasking - I was looking for ways to do it better.  After all, isn't it all about multitasking? Having it all? Being able to do it all and make it look effortless?  But I found article after article on how multitasking reduces productivity (by up to 40%, according to one article), lowers IQ, increases, stress, etc.  What??? Isn't this supposed to be the goal of every professional?  One article described it as task-switching - doing one thing for 5 minutes, being interrupted by something, going back, etc.  It takes the brain time to refocus, and according to some, our brains just aren't built for that, no matter how much we want them to be.

Why Multitasking Is Bad for You

The True Cost of Multi-tasking

And this post describes a simple test that you can do on yourself if you're not convinced.

Now, I know.  It's summer.  I don't have very many students, phone calls, classes, etc all needing stuff.  But I thought, what if I implement some practices this summer in hopes that at least some habits will stick around during the academic year? So, I tried it yesterday.  After reading several more articles with helpful suggestions, I challenged myself to go to work and try unitasking.  Even just saying it felt like I was stepping back.  Like I was admitting multitasking defeat.  And maybe I am.  But you know what? I did some very simple things and IT WORKED!  I was more productive.  Less stressed.  And not one person that I explained it to at work thought I was crazy.  Ok, that was all of 2 people, but they were both my bosses, so that counts, right?

I'll tell you what I did in a followup post.  I haven't posted in almost three years - I don't want to spill every detail in one post.  It's good to be back. :)