Holiday Goals
There’s a prevalent myth in the world of academia that it’s possible to get work, and especially writing, done during the holidays. It feels like this wide open time, full of whole days that can be spent writing. And then the holidays come, and they’re full of family and food and perhaps catching up on email. So in an effort to make my holiday time productive, I’m spending my mornings at the library in Toledo this week. I hope to write up all my fieldnotes, get through email, transcribe two interviews, and plan out writing projects for January. Mixed in with these work things, I hope to start finding some excitement about the holidays themselves, possibly by making Christmas cards.
As an aside, have you seen this preview? With the babies and culture of different places, it’s the perfect movie for a grad student working away on research into cultural integration while dreaming about life with kids.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:02 am
Oh dear, I’ve fallen into this trap so many times (including this very week!). It works IF you stay at home, but visiting family or taking a vacation and thinking you’ll have those wonderful 5 hour slots of time for work NEVER works . I always end up making putting off work for family things and then have a completely unmanageable number of tasks to complete those last 2 days before work officially begins again. Somehow, though, I never seem to learn my lesson! Library time in the mornings sounds like a great way to do it.