Post date: Mar 27, 2020 6:17:9 PM
In conversations I've had with graduate students over the last week, "creating routines" has come up a lot.
I agree-- important. But, time, like money, is hard to talk about but talked about a lot. Our attitudes toward both, and to work and both, deserve scrutiny if we want to get projects done. But let's avoid judgement as a starting point.
Let's think of the "calendar and the clock" as standing in for making time to get work done over time.
People who think about writers and writing and creative work and productivity have a lot to say about calendars and clocks.
You'll find two pieces in our Readings and Resources that talk about Time and Work.
One is a selection from Eric Maisel's book Fearless Creating in which he discusses working and routines. Another is from Eviatar Zurubavel's book The Clockwork Muse, who has many interesting things to say about time, writing, and writing schedules.
Eric Maisel, a psychologist, writer, and creativity coach, writes that
Working is best conceptualized as all three of the following: working in the moment, working on a given day, and working over time. Each refers to the same work in progress but in a distinct and different way.
Artist's tend to hold these concepts in mind and judge themselves against some standard with regard to each of them. They are either working well in the moment or they aren't. They either have done enough work on a given day or they haven't. The project is either coming along well, generally speaking, or it isn't. To feel as if they are measuring up, artists must meet their own standards in each regard. (Fearless Creating, pg. 125)
Too obvious to say? I think not!
On both counts, Maisel makes a good point. We who do this kind of work are always trying to solve the problems of making time today, getting ourselves to focus on a task when we sit down to work, and managing the work over consecutive days, weeks, months and years.
Then, the other thing, too-- each is an occasion to judge ourselves against a standard. How did it go? How is it going.
Something to remember about the standard you may be using now:
Your routines are evolving right now.
You may find that you were quickly able to assert that certain times would be for your work-- that you've scheduled writing, as some recommend, and that you have been able to maintain that schedule.
Perhaps not.
It could be that by now, you have some answers to lingering questions: What's up with my lab? How will my teaching responsibilities shape up online? Those postponed meetings with advisors and committees? How will home schooling work out for the kids?
And yet, each day may seem a bit different, right now.
We will talk about calendars and clocks as tools-- the kinds of time you might keep, how you'll monitor to your time, plan, and map goals onto time.
Right now, you may simplify things a bit. You may have a calendar that you're working against so you have a sense of where you need to land several weeks hence.
But right now, you may be finding that while you promise yourself you'll work at given times over the week ahead, you're not showing up, or can't show up, or do show up and spend much less time than you'd intended. Or maybe it went well!
Let yourself answer only one question-- what will I do today?
Maybe what you'll do is spend time reading the pieces I linked here so that you can address your concerns about finding a routine.
That would be well spent time.