I tried to start getting in the swing of tracking workload this past week, as well as back in the swing of WW. Now, this was sort of stupid, as my week was all nutso because it was the first week back, I was trying to get back in the right timezone, I had stupid work-related social events that involved food and drink…. So anyway, I’m going to try to get back in the swing of things this week for real.
Some observations from my less-than-successful tracking week last week: 1) At least for the first month of the semester, I’m going to be spending at least 40 hours a week on teaching. The problem is reading. Reading takes time. And while it might seem like reading isn’t “work,” the kind of reading you have to do to prepare to teach a bunch of people who may or may not have done the reading is, in fact work – i.e., not terribly fun or relaxing or restful. 2) The major problem with food tracking is having food in single-serving sizes that I’ve already calculated the points for, i.e., cooking at least one major meal ahead to get me through those days of the week when I’m a nutso. Given the fact that I didn’t return from MLA until like 11 PM on the eve of the semester, that just didn’t happen last week. 3) I did get some research reading done last week in spite of the challenges, but no writing. This week I’ve got to do better. 4) I’ve also got to get better about remembering to track the work. Food is easier as I’m eating much less of the time, and I don’t do as much multitasking while eating. With work, I’m doing it more often and I’m doing other crap while I’m also working more often. Maybe the trick to workload management is not to multitask quite so much? Something to ponder.
On that note, let’s begin the second of 15 brutal Tuesdays. And yes, I plan to count down like this all semester, because it does help to see that I’m getting closer to being finished with this terrible schedule.
Reassigned Time 2.0 
there should be an app for that, timetracker or some such thing
Oh, there is, Femomist. I’ve got it on my phone. Of course, my phone has just run out of power and I don’t have a charger in my office… (As you see, this will take some getting used to).
oohh which one did you get. I SO need that because I am determined to make it better for the jr. peeps behind me by tracking the time required for all the crap TTLAC puts on us!
You are absolutely correct that reading for teaching is not as fun as reading for fun or even for research. And this still holds true when you reread for teaching. Of course, because so many think that it’s only reading, it doesn’t get treated with much respect by critics and sometimes even colleagues.
FeMOMist – I’ve got an Android and the app I have is free, called Time Recorder. There are a ton of different ones, though, both free and for cheap. I like the app – the problem is that I forget to check in, and then by the time I remember I don’t remember when I started doing the work. Luckily (or not) I know that I work for 12 straight hours on Tuesday, spending nearly all of that time on teaching. No need to track when you are alienated labor interpellated by the ideological state apparatus! (Yes, I just finished explaining Althusser. How would you ever guess?)
And J, speaking of Althusser, my colleagues are actually all floored by my reading load this semester and they think that I am a martyr or saint or similar. I just think that I am hard-freaking-core. We’ll see if I still feel that way by midterm when we have made our way to Foucault 🙂
“The problem is reading. Reading takes time. And while it might seem like reading isn’t ‘work,’ the kind of reading you have to do to prepare to teach a bunch of people who may or may not have done the reading is, in fact work – i.e., not terribly fun or relaxing or restful. ”
Amen to this. It’s one of the truths that we humanists need to hold on to, for ourselves *and* our students, in the face of renewed/increasing accusations that we’re inefficient, don’t really work all that many hours, etc., etc.