It has been a while since my last blog post. I am trying to be more intentional and reflective this year, in work and life. I’m hoping that this (and future posts) will be a place of reflection about living the life as an academic, including research (that I’m doing and reading), teaching (I’m helping launch a new teaching center in the college) and service (I’ve been thinking a lot about mentoring lately).
With trying to be more intentional and reflective, I have set some goals for myself. In the past, I have made vague goals, never written down in this detail, and not very intentional. These goals align with my five-year plan, so more intentional than I’ve ever been about this in the past.
The blog comes into play because blog writing is one of my work goals for the year. Here’s my full list:
1) Write two federal grants as PI this year
2) Be on email less – be more intentional about email
3) Plan and launch a teaching collaboration in the college
4) Start an artificial (AI) group/consortium in the college
5) Review/edit bio and CV monthly (I know I should already do this)
6) Write 10 blog posts this year (10% done!)
7) Submit five articles
Here’s a short description of each of the goals.
1) Write two federal grants as PI this year
I love writing grant narratives. Planning a research project and imagining all the possibilities that could be is fun. I like telling the story of my research and showing the trajectory of the story. I love showing the difference in people’s lives that research makes. (I’m not a huge fan of all the additional paperwork, red tape, etc. of grant writing – just the narrative bit.)
For the two grants, I’m thinking about my T1DHero project and a telehealth project regarding cancer support in rural Michigan. The MyT1DHero has encouraging data and I would like to tweak the intervention and add a social support component. The cancer support is with a new and fabulous collaborator. I am looking forward to this project and learning about the challenges of receiving cancer support via telehealth in a rural setting. There are a lot of interesting and fun research questions that can be unpacked.
2) Be on email less – be more intentional about email
Confession: I’m addicted to email. I mindlessly pick up my phone and I don’t even think about my thumb opening it up. My email window is ALWAYS open. I knew I had a problem when listening to a Cathy Mazak podcast on time management and she said to schedule your email for 1-2 hours a day and I had a visceral negative reaction. To me, email made me feel like I was doing *something* – that I was working. Sure, I am, but it is the “easy” work not the deep work I love doing. But sometimes that deep work is hard and takes time. Cathy also said that “Email doesn’t get you tenure.” I’ll take that a step ahead and assume that it doesn’t get you full either.
I have set up a routine that I’ll try to keep. I’ll check it in the morning as part of my “personal time” – just to clear away junk, make sure there is nothing new that needs to be addressed and read the New York Times “The Morning” newsletter. I have email time scheduled in my calendar, and thanks to Kate Lockwood-Harris from the University of Minnesota for the tip, I have downloaded (and am really loving) the plug-in “Inbox When Ready.” I have also taken notifications off my phone for email. It has been game changing. I haven’t gone through the withdrawal I was worried about. I tell my students that I have these times, so they need to be patient. And I give my grad students my number so they can text me. Overall, I feel like this is an important boundary on my time – my most valuable commodity right now. I’m hoping that this will allow me the time to really focus on the projects that I love.
3) Plan and launch a teaching collaboration in the college
I’ve recently been named as a co-director for a new initiative in the College of ComArtSci. I’m really excited about the opportunity and possibilities that this can bring to our students and faculty. More to come on this later…
4) Start an artificial (AI) group/consortium in the college
I’m interested in AI in health and the impacts of it on health-related communication. I’m new to the area, I’m currently reading and thinking a lot about it. But many of my brilliant colleagues in the college have been thinking and writing about this for awhile. I’d love to come together to learn, share, and hopefully secure center funding in the future. Also, more to come on this…
5) Review/edit bio and CV monthly (I know I should already do this)
It seems terribly obvious this is something an academic should do regularly. To me, this is the equivalent of making your bed. I’m terrible at doing it regularly (same with bed making). It also feels like low hanging fruit. I’ve just revised my bio on the college’s webpage and the landing page of this website. I’ve set the third Friday of the month to do this on a regular basis.
6) Write 10 blog posts this year (10% done!)
It shouldn’t be *that* hard, should it? I have kept a long running list of topics that I want to think, reflect, and write about. I want these posts to be a place for me to do some free writing around topics that are interesting to me. It helps me organize my thoughts. It allows me to write – go off on tangents (that I’ll delete) but perhaps use somewhere else.
7) Submit five articles
I’m not quite sure how I’m going to measure this goal. I have six papers that are under some type of review right now and five that are in-the-works, early stages of research/writing. I’ve never really set this type of goal before. It’s always been – “just get enough for tenure”. With this goal, I’m just trying to be more intentional in my work.
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That’s the list for 2022. I have personal, health, family and friends’ goals, but these are my work/professional ones. If I make all these goals, hooray! If I don’t, it allows me to gather data about why not and plan better for the future. I do love the promise of a new year, the feeling of gratitude being allowed to do the work that I love, and excited about the unknown opportunities that await!
Do you set goals for your year?