I just discovered your blog and have been enjoying...

2011-04-03T16:06:43.945-04:00

I just discovered your blog and have been enjoying it here at work in the McGill Education Library. Then I came to this post. Even though it's a year later, I totally sympathize. I am finishing up a Masters in Library and Information Science and my productivity calculus is failing. It's nice to know I am not alone. Cheers!

Good luck.

2010-05-21T14:32:45.052-04:00

Good luck.

Cheryl Ball heartily recommended your blog to me t...

2010-05-02T00:38:24.791-04:00

Cheryl Ball heartily recommended your blog to me this past weekend, and I have to say that I love what you're doing here. I sense an affinity, but that will likely play out in your subsequent posts.

About this particular post, I have to say that I feel much the same way, at times, here at U of Louisville (Phd, Rhet/Comp). I've been quite productive for so long, but now I feel myself less often satisfied with this productivity, and more often overwhelmed with what I'm "not" getting done. I think it has something to do with a stage that most academics go through (I hope, or I need to think this, anyway, to preserve my hope). It's something akin to these stages: I started college and then graduate school incredibly excited about what it means to be an academic, the work to be done, the lifestyle, the identity, etc. No shortage of motivation, for sure. But then, the more I really immersed myself in that work, the more I came to realize all of the "undemonstrated" work underlying the work I had hoped to perform (read: early dissertation projects). But I stuck with my tried-and-true approaches. Carve out a plan, and work through it, regardless of the scope. It's shocking just how much can be done, isn't it? But this immersion really serves to continue to reveal the depth of work that is never apparent until I've submerged beyond the initial plan. Inevitably, I've had to cut the scope of my projects for the sake of depth. Which is good, I think. Scope is good for the scholar; depth is good for the scholarship. Once I actually accepted that there were tons of projects about which I could be deeply passionate, but couldn't pursue, I sort of had this little moment of Zen. Which not so coincidentally, was at the same moment I changed my dissertation topic to something that blows my away every day I sit down to work on it. And since then, I've been more comfortable focusing on the way my hands move over the dishes as I wash them. The way my legs ache on the long hills of my bike rides. The way over-ripe strawberries mush in my mouth between sips of lemonade.

The process has not been fun, and I'm still figuring it out. It was embarrassing to give up on projects I had ill-advisedly started. I felt awful about pushing back deadlines to be more realistic and healthy. But the work now is very, very good. And the scope is small. And my mornings have energy. And the nights are no longer "not-long-enough," but just long enough.

So, no advice for you at all. Just a simple agreement that it's f-ing hard. But not hopeless.

Looking forward to more of your posts.

Trauman

I admire your Productivity calculus, even as you s...

2010-04-04T08:26:15.855-04:00

I admire your Productivity calculus, even as you say, it doesn't work any more. I'm guilt-ridden all the time. The only times I remember of not being obsessed with "productivity" were when death or illness loomed over a loved one. Magically productivity and doing something worthy faded away and everything, I felt, assumed their "right" dimensions.

Comments on d i a p s a l m a t a: On Being Productive.

I just discovered your blog and have been enjoying...

Good luck.

Cheryl Ball heartily recommended your blog to me t...

I admire your Productivity calculus, even as you s...