Reflections on WC--The Change I need

I guess I don't need to explain why this last week has been crazy. What might not be as apparent is why I felt so hopeful last Friday that this week would be not as bad as last week. The time demands were a little different but still many and persistent. I actually did write last Friday, a little on Monday--then everything frizzled.

I don't know all the chapters my self-help writing book would have, but several would be about reminding myself that my writing is worth it, is worthy of the demands it makes on my time even though it makes me feel selfish to do it instead of things that seem to more immediately help other people. One chapter might be to collaborate regularly: if I'm working with other people, I honor those commitments (plus I enjoy the process). Another might be to make my writing a priority even if it's a non-collaborative project. That's the big issue--writing just for me, not for anyone else or an externally imposed deadline.

I found the most helpful aspect of this club the motivation I had to make myself write and blog about it or I'd be letting other people down. So that was helpful to motivate me to write, but maybe just enabling my tendencies to do things for other people instead of ones that seem just for me.

I joined this club to get that kind of motivation. I think some other people may not have joined because they might have seen the interactive part of the club (and the reflective part) as more work that would take away from their time and focus on their own projects. Maybe that's not true, but I imagine that there are folks out there who are able to be productive because they focus mainly on their own work and involve themselves as minimally as possible in other work-related networks since they might distract from the narrow focus on what they are trying to accomplish. This may not be many people, but I imagine it's quite a few. I also wish I had their ability to require that focus on their own projects before other things.

Now I have to figure out how to make myself prioritize my writing even when it's solitary.

Hit the doldrums

I have been working on the article this week, but not blogging until now. I feel like I'm putting in the time but not moving forward at all. I spent 20 minutes Monday and 40 today reading a long article. It was helpful, but I still feel like I've accomplished nothing. And it was very tough when I started thinking about Sally's question about targeting an achievable goal to complete for the next 2 weeks (now it's a week and a half). Here's where I feel like all the little chunks aren't adding up to much. And this week is really busy: we've had phone interviews on a search committee I'm on plus the English 100 conference is this Friday, and I'm doing a lot of the organizing for that--and all that's on top of the usual hecticness winding up the semester.

I can either jump into more of my lit. or web searching or draft part of the article that I already have the angle and info on. I don't know what will be most helpful to target. But I'm still trying to work in at least 15 minutes for the next two days and try for 30 minutes four days next week. I'll sleep on it and decide tomorrow what I'll focus on.