Here's the basic purpose of this thread: we all have Dreaded Tasks that we assiduously avoid or that drag out for hours and hours when we finally get to them. My primary Dreaded Task at every waking moment of my life is grading papers. Yours may be finishing comments on a dissertation chapter, editing a ms, returning to that dusty draft to revise for publication. Abstractly we all know that common antidotes to procrastination are accountability and structure. So that's what we're trying out here with this "work-sprint" thread.
If you want to participate, simply sign on to the thread by identifying
(a) your Dreaded Task work goals for the session and
(b) your chosen time frame(s) for completing tasksThen you sign back in at the end of each "sprint" of work you complete. Here are mine for tonight, e.g.:
(a) grade 18 short papers for my survey class
(b) 15 min. to grade each paper; after that I have to put the paper aside and move on
Yes, the entries on this thread are going to be
really,
really dull. But "hooray" for dull if it gets the job done.
And let's say we
take a break every 90 minutes (on the hour or half hour, starting the clock with whoever gets the session going each day), maybe chat a bit here, or run off to visit the One-Offs thread, or literally run off to do whatever.
I think the other theory at work with this little experiment is that a lot of academic work is pretty isolated, which may be why many of us are inclined to avoid it. Hopefully, this will take the edge off of that isolation -- I'm certainly happy to have your company!
I have one more task to take care of before getting back to grading, so I'll sign back in at around 9:00 pm. See you all then!
Tux
btw, if you're interested in the conversation that started all this, you'll find it
here.
