The hallmark of any truly great coach or player is what they do after they’ve had a few moments to collect themselves and see what the ‘game’ is presenting them. This holds true in life as well as it does in sports. For my professional life I’m about to enter my second half, both as a professor over the course of this school year and as a writer with two decades of work under his belt.
So, what changes? As I said before, it is about what the ‘game’ gives you. If I look at my ‘professor life’ I’ve been dealt a deck of students who are largely apathetic about the learning experience and limited in terms of time available to do assignments. They and I are similar in that second area. I too struggle with finding the time to work. This isn’t precisely about not having the time, but about allocating the time to the work properly. I spend way too much time watching TV. So, first thing is to ditch the channels and limit what I watch. This is going to let me allocate more time to writing and focus on the shows I actually care about and can get much cheaper through other means (Hulu, Amazon, Netflix…)
Second is to develop a health schedule for body, mind, and soul. Followers of the Talis know that this is my achilles heel. Well, he died so I don’t have to. I’m going to recognize my lack of invincibility and schedule lightly–giving myself wiggle room to goof off, but sticking to some hard hour ranges that create a routine. I am also giving myself time to grade and scheduling as much as I can in advance. These are the areas that hurt me last semester, so I’m going to make them my strengths and make this whole experience one that makes me a better teacher and writer in the process.
Some Thoughts:
- My last cat didn’t use a litter box, so i am struggling with figuring out an effective way to clean and keep clean the area around this one. She is kicking litter everywhere and it has been tough finding something that contains it well.
- Today I’m sitting down with the boys and discussing our favorite shows so we can finally ditch Directtv. I’ll talk about what that plan looks like once I have it all figured out.