Procrastadabbler

I’m contemplating my research agenda and my summer teaching load. I’ve come to the realization that trying to do too much results in too little being done.

For instance, I am reworking the summer course. It used to be taught by a different person, who did a fine job, but the readings didn’t work for me when I taught it this spring. So, I’m revisiting it. He often said, the problem with the course is that there is so much that could be done with it. And I see that point. For every text I put into the course, something else cannot be there. Right now, I have an abundance of texts that I’d like to use in the course, so now I have to sort through and make really hard decisions. One of the things my colleague had the students do was read a book of poetry. It’s a beautiful collection. I’ve been reading it slowly over the past few months. Just a few poems a day. I’ve come to the realization that is how poems should be read. He had assigned the whole book to be read in one week. I’ve done that in the past as a student and as an instructor. The poems lose their sweetness and poignancy when approached that way, as a task. Therefore, I’m contemplating how to share those poems without turning it into a task. I’m considering Billy Collins’ approach of a poem a day, even though we meet only once a week. But I’m considering posting one of my favorite poems from the collection for the students to consider as class begins. But not to analyze. Just to savor and to set the tone for the class – one of quiet contemplation.

Our world is too noisy – with literal noise such as the engine my neighbor is busy revving or the noise of ideas.

In terms of my research, I have a book and four articles I want to write. They are, of course, all related, but they are all different as well. So my task is to determine how I’m going to do them all, or whether I should. But I want to. My task is to quiet my brain enough to focus on one particular writing task at a time and make it meaningful. The magic is not in the quantity but in the quality. I am not a high quantity writer, but I think those publications I do have are quality. One powerful piece can make more of a difference than multiple pieces of fluff. But at the same time, a collection of smaller works build to something significant (like the collection of poems).

I also have data to finish collecting. I’m anxious to be done with that. I want to dig into the data and make sense of it. The past year my data analysis has been poorly lacking. It’s time to get serious.

So I’m back to my original conundrum – so much to do and so little time.