Day 57

Thoughts and reflections

Wow, the days are ticking by fast. Tomorrow is my last day of "work" until January 4. Next week I decided to take 5 days off to read books and work on things that I want to work on...and essentially ignore my email. The plan is to put together more concrete plans for my various projects that I'm working on at the moment and get my head together about what I'm doing next year.

I've realised something over I guess the last year really, but it's probably a culmination of the last three years where I have been focussed on the whole Teaching and Learning thing as Director of Studies (and its predecessor job titles). I need lots of things on at once to be able to make progress on anything. When I don't have much going on, I don't get much done. It's almost like I'm too free and can't focus on tasks. When I have a LOT on, I do little bits and pieces, but I get things done. When I'm super-stressed for time, with back to back meetings etc (say filling in for the A/Dean) I get LOTS of things done and can be really productive. Also, I've noticed that I really benefit from outlining my tasks to myself and sorting out how to get through each project - maybe that's obvious to most people, but I never worked that way before and haven't worked with anyone like that either. So for me, it has been enlightening.

Skype!


This morning I had a skype meeting with Dr Dan in Trondheim to restart our Chlamydia research work. It was good to get back onto this and get some plans down on paper. I think it ended up with Dan to be working on some coding for solving our (not yet really written) stochastic DE model.

That's another thing I've learned - my progress/productivity is really dependent on "check-in" meetings like this. I need constant reminders and kick starting to get through things. I can't just do it myself.

I think it's really great that I've been able to realise these things about myself - it seems to me it's important to get to know how you work and to know how you can get things done and why you sometimes don't get things done.