Not That Kind of Doctor - Summertime
TLTE
Author
05/18/2023
Added
1
Plays
Description
As we wrap up Season 1 of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Guy and Nick are diving into the art of planning a productive summer—without burning out. In this episode, we discuss how to make the most of your summer break, whether you're an academic, a graduate student, or just someone looking to achieve a balance between work and personal projects.
Guy and Nick share their strategies for prioritizing tasks, setting realistic goals, and making sure your summer is both fulfilling and rejuvenating. We cover everything from mind dumping and categorizing your to-do list to the importance of letting your schedule breathe and enjoying the summer months.
đź“… Key Takeaways:
The importance of acknowledging time as a finite resource.
How to prioritize tasks and set achievable goals for summer.
Tips for graduate students on synthesizing coursework and preparing for the next academic year.
The value of planning unstructured time for personal projects and relaxation.
Whether you're prepping for summer teaching, tackling research projects, or simply planning to enjoy the sun, this episode offers valuable insights to help you create a balanced and productive summer.
Productivity Template at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1165Wh30OBEad-BrxnBdwh1jwcrGJTy9DOLtCZUUJtOA/copy
If you enjoyed this season, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. We’ll see you back for Season 2 in the fall!
#SummerPlanning #AcademicLife #TimeManagement #ProductivityTips #NotThatKindOfDoctor
Summertime - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
Searchable Transcript
Toggle between list and paragraph view.
- [00:00:00.037](upbeat music)
- [00:00:08.800]How does it take 20 minutes to get
- [00:00:10.020]from one side of Lincoln from the other?
- [00:00:10.980]It's not that big of a city.
- [00:00:12.870]Yet it is.
- [00:00:13.890]I know, it's 'cause we have no freeway.
- [00:00:15.360]But anyway, guess what?
- [00:00:16.710]What?
- [00:00:18.325]We're almost done.
- [00:00:19.663]We're almost done with it.
- [00:00:21.270]It's almost summer.
- [00:00:23.040]Almost summer.
- [00:00:24.030]I'm dressed for summer. That's it.
- [00:00:25.980]I mean look, I'm dressed for summer as well,
- [00:00:28.200]I'm just not as flashy, okay? (Guy laughs)
- [00:00:31.768]This isn't the aesthetic that I go for
- [00:00:33.720]'cause I can't pull it off.
- [00:00:35.100]I don't have the personality.
- [00:00:36.630]Hmm. Okay.
- [00:00:40.260]So what are your summer plans?
- [00:00:42.330]Oh, so many summer...
- [00:00:43.440]Well, I mean, so okay, so first off.
- [00:00:48.240]Yes.
- [00:00:49.073]Time acknowledgement.
- [00:00:50.850]As I'm thinking about like,
- [00:00:52.080]what are your summer plans and also, hi.
- [00:00:57.210]Welcome to Not That Kind of Doctor.
- [00:00:59.850]I'm Nick Husbye.
- [00:01:01.290]I'm an associate professor here at UNL.
- [00:01:03.630]And I'm Guy Tranin and I'm a professor here at UNL.
- [00:01:07.047]And so, okay, so time acknowledgement
- [00:01:09.240]because summer is upon us, which is...
- [00:01:12.870]Whoops.
- [00:01:13.703]It's kind of like,
- [00:01:14.880]have you ever seen "Tiny Toon Adventures:
- [00:01:16.290]How I Spent My Vacation"?
- [00:01:18.090]No.
- [00:01:19.110]So there's this great musical number in the beginning
- [00:01:21.360]where they're like, "It's finally summertime."
- [00:01:23.250]And that's like what goes in my head every time.
- [00:01:27.090]Sorry.
- [00:01:28.770]Causing problems.
- [00:01:30.990]Every time like May hits, like some summer is upon us.
- [00:01:35.790]I'm going to get so much done.
- [00:01:38.580]It's gonna be great.
- [00:01:40.980]But there's the reality that I am a nine month
- [00:01:47.250]contracting employee with the institution,
- [00:01:51.570]with UNL, until I teach, right?
- [00:01:54.120]I teach in the summer, so that kind of shifts
- [00:01:56.580]the way that I think about my timing
- [00:01:59.340]during the summer or my time during the summer.
- [00:02:02.490]But if you are a nine month contract employee
- [00:02:06.720]and you have no other extenuating contracts
- [00:02:12.300]or teaching during the summer that compensates
- [00:02:15.450]you for your time, your summer's your summer.
- [00:02:18.870]Yeah.
- [00:02:20.310]Like really, you should not be expected,
- [00:02:25.860]you should not be expected, I shouldn't even hedge.
- [00:02:28.020]You should not be expected to spend
- [00:02:30.360]any uncompensated time outside of your contract.
- [00:02:33.900]Yeah.
- [00:02:34.733]And this is a little bit hard for us because many
- [00:02:38.160]of our graduate students are teachers and the time
- [00:02:45.180]of the year that they have a little bit
- [00:02:46.620]more time to get ahead with their plans is summer.
- [00:02:50.100]So they often try and push, for reasonable reasons
- [00:02:55.200]for themselves, to meet, to get advice,
- [00:02:58.980]to have some kind of interaction.
- [00:03:02.070]And I think, if we think about this, and we know
- [00:03:04.650]this is going to happen, we have some, at least I've
- [00:03:08.430]developed over time, methodologies to deal with that.
- [00:03:10.800]Including have the conversation early about,
- [00:03:14.640]during the summer most faculty aren't here.
- [00:03:18.150]If you are not going to be, if you are off contract
- [00:03:20.460]during that time saying, I'm not going to be here.
- [00:03:22.980]So if you want anything done,
- [00:03:24.870]we have to prep it in May before we all leave.
- [00:03:28.110]So you know what you're supposed to do and when you have
- [00:03:30.810]the time, you can go ahead, but there's not going to be
- [00:03:33.840]many committee meetings, defenses, all of those things.
- [00:03:39.000]If you do want to do it and you run out of time,
- [00:03:41.790]or there's something special, sometimes we make that choice.
- [00:03:46.260]But in general, your time is your time.
- [00:03:48.720]If you're off contract, please take the time off.
- [00:03:52.080]Enjoy it and do whatever it is
- [00:03:54.450]that you want to do during that time.
- [00:03:56.940]Yes. Yes.
- [00:03:58.380]Because there's this kind of unspoken,
- [00:04:01.170]like, oh you'll do all your writing during the summer.
- [00:04:05.130]That's an essential part of my job.
- [00:04:06.750]Like that's part of my job responsibilities.
- [00:04:08.490]That's what I'm supposed to be doing.
- [00:04:09.870]So if I can't get that accomplished
- [00:04:12.360]in the nine months for which I have a contract,
- [00:04:15.630]that's a systemic failure right there.
- [00:04:19.260]Like, if that's literally part of my job
- [00:04:24.870]and I can't get that done during the time with which
- [00:04:27.030]I am contracted, that's a larger problem, right?
- [00:04:30.720]And that's a systemic problem
- [00:04:32.250]that individuals shouldn't be owning.
- [00:04:34.560]Yeah, and well sometimes you should be because you need
- [00:04:38.010]to audit your time and see, if I didn't have
- [00:04:40.830]time for it, what else did I do with my time?
- [00:04:43.620]Because I'm pretty sure that most, both
- [00:04:45.330]graduate students and faculty, are filling their time.
- [00:04:48.960]They're doing something during those very busy nine months.
- [00:04:53.040]And so if you could not find the time to write,
- [00:04:56.190]a few things are happening.
- [00:04:57.090]One is your approach to writing is probably wrong
- [00:04:59.700]because you're thinking there's going to be
- [00:05:01.260]this magical time when everything comes together.
- [00:05:04.560]It never works that way.
- [00:05:06.270]All the research we have about writing says it doesn't work.
- [00:05:08.064]I think there's a podcast on this, don't we?
- [00:05:09.560]We do.
- [00:05:11.067](Both laugh)
- [00:05:11.970]Go back and look for it.
- [00:05:13.015]Come back.
- [00:05:14.190]And so this is a way for us to often,
- [00:05:20.040]to convince ourselves that everything is fine when it's not.
- [00:05:23.340]Because we're saying,
- [00:05:24.173]"Oh, it's going to happen in the summer."
- [00:05:25.740]If you have to rely on the summer and you are off contract
- [00:05:28.470]in the summer, then something in your time plan is off.
- [00:05:33.570]And that's really important to say.
- [00:05:34.920]But, if you're like us and you are in May,
- [00:05:37.530]it's too late to fix last year.
- [00:05:39.330]But start thinking about how
- [00:05:40.860]is it going to be different next year?
- [00:05:42.480]Because otherwise you're gonna repeat that mistake.
- [00:05:45.720]Yeah, so I think the, that time acknowledgement,
- [00:05:50.070]I'm not saying that don't work on things connected to your
- [00:05:54.690]research, don't work on things connected to your teaching,
- [00:05:56.940]but it's up to you how and what you take on, right?
- [00:06:03.210]So like when I'm thinking about summer,
- [00:06:06.720]one of the things I mentioned in our Unstuck podcast,
- [00:06:10.590]or like, as I like to call it,
- [00:06:14.130]Nick loses his poop emoji podcast.
- [00:06:20.700]Like, I've been able to start thinking through and planning
- [00:06:23.580]for a lot of the work I've been putting off across
- [00:06:27.420]the semester because I taught overload, stupidly.
- [00:06:31.890]Students are great.
- [00:06:33.120]Love you lit block, love you children's lit,
- [00:06:34.920]love you science of reading doc students.
- [00:06:37.050]You made my semester.
- [00:06:39.420]But it was a lot of work.
- [00:06:42.990]So I've got...
- [00:06:45.600]So here's my process for how I'm thinking about summer.
- [00:06:49.110]Because you know me, I love a good table.
- [00:06:51.390]I love a good table
- [00:06:52.350]As well you should.
- [00:06:53.183]As well I should.
- [00:06:54.240]But I always start by just mind dumping everything
- [00:07:00.480]that I wanna get done, regardless of whether it's work,
- [00:07:03.960]house, dogs, people, I wanna see, my garden.
- [00:07:10.800]Like what is it that I want to get done in the summer.
- [00:07:14.727]And I just make this huge long list
- [00:07:18.630]and then I start coding it.
- [00:07:20.010]Like, here's one version, you know, right there.
- [00:07:23.190]Where I've just-
- [00:07:24.276]That's all you have for summer?
- [00:07:25.980]There's multiple pages.
- [00:07:27.420]This is just the most recent page.
- [00:07:30.420]I haven't categorized this yet, but I will.
- [00:07:32.220]That's the next step. Don't ahead at me.
- [00:07:33.426]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [00:07:34.590]Wow Okay. I'm sorry.
- [00:07:37.821]He's not.
- [00:07:38.716](Guy laughs)
- [00:07:39.991]He's not.
- [00:07:42.600]But yeah, so like I mind dump every single thing.
- [00:07:45.780]So like the fact that I need my rec room painted,
- [00:07:49.140]I need to finish that.
- [00:07:50.190]I started in November,
- [00:07:52.080]didn't have a chance to finish it yet.
- [00:07:54.420]That needs to get done.
- [00:07:56.340]I have all of these light fixtures
- [00:07:58.350]all around my house that need to get swapped out.
- [00:08:01.140]They're all purchased, haven't done it yet.
- [00:08:04.170]Haven't had time.
- [00:08:05.850]Like literally haven't had time
- [00:08:06.930]to be home for the electrician.
- [00:08:10.020]Hashtag single life.
- [00:08:12.120]Dogs can't let them in, right?
- [00:08:14.490]So like, it's just everything that I can possibly think of.
- [00:08:19.410]And then I start coding.
- [00:08:22.290]And normally with a highlighter I go through
- [00:08:23.940]and I highlight like, oh these are things around the house.
- [00:08:26.910]These are like my personal crafty projects.
- [00:08:30.330]Like, I have a quilt that I'd love to finish this summer.
- [00:08:33.060]I've got some goals for lit block, 'cause I have
- [00:08:39.390]a grad student who's gonna come and learn about lit block
- [00:08:44.700]and teach in lit block with me next semester.
- [00:08:47.310]So I feel like there's some underlying
- [00:08:50.040]structures that I want to build.
- [00:08:51.960]I've got some research projects
- [00:08:53.160]that I need to get materials ready for.
- [00:08:56.880]And so I start coding, and laying out, and categorizing,
- [00:09:02.820]you know, my writing, what kinds of writing
- [00:09:05.850]do I wanna do this summer, what kinds
- [00:09:07.620]of data analysis do I wanna spend some time with?
- [00:09:10.380]What kinds of reading do I wanna do as I'm
- [00:09:12.600]taking over the el-ed program coordinator position,
- [00:09:16.830]like I've got books on leading more
- [00:09:19.260]effective meetings, and giving and receiving feedback,
- [00:09:23.370]and creating like, second brains.
- [00:09:26.820]How do you manage so much information?
- [00:09:30.060]What are ways that people can think about that?
- [00:09:33.510]What is it that I wanna do personally with my summer, right,
- [00:09:37.320]like that I haven't had time for.
- [00:09:39.000]And then thinking through like what
- [00:09:40.470]are the teaching things that I need to do?
- [00:09:43.470]So once I have those kind of separated,
- [00:09:46.560]then I keep thinking there are 24 hours in a day.
- [00:09:52.770]I'd like at some point to get eight hours of sleep again.
- [00:09:56.520]Okay.
- [00:09:57.353]Hasn't happened all semester,
- [00:09:59.640]but maybe this summer.
- [00:10:01.230]Hope springs eternal.
- [00:10:03.510]All right. Yeah.
- [00:10:05.263]So what you're saying is you need
- [00:10:07.710]to let that schedule breathe.
- [00:10:09.420]The idea is not to cram as much as possible and-
- [00:10:12.930]Well, so here's where I'm talking about the...
- [00:10:15.840]So here's where I start getting the nitty gritty.
- [00:10:17.490]So once I've got all my kind of things
- [00:10:22.920]that I want to get done categorized,
- [00:10:27.420]I can then start prioritizing based upon the fact
- [00:10:29.880]that I have 24 hours in the day.
- [00:10:32.370]Eight of those I hope to be sleeping.
- [00:10:35.010]Which leads me to 16 hours, waking hours.
- [00:10:38.070]In a week that's about 112 hours
- [00:10:42.570]that I have at my disposal, right?
- [00:10:44.940]I don't want those all to be working hours,
- [00:10:47.040]but it gives me an idea of like
- [00:10:50.550]how much time I actually have.
- [00:10:53.160]Like time is not infinite.
- [00:10:57.450]We have a limited amount of it.
- [00:10:59.280]Okay.
- [00:11:00.510]You following? Yeah. So far so good.
- [00:11:03.690]We are we going delving into the Elon Musk
- [00:11:07.380]time is the ultimate currency?
- [00:11:10.620]I mean,
- [00:11:13.169]I don't know. It is.
- [00:11:14.002]I don't know that I love the capitalistic
- [00:11:17.340]perspective like that veers into the, like,
- [00:11:20.587]"What do you do with your side hustle?"
- [00:11:22.980]No, that's not where we're going.
- [00:11:25.560]No, but like things we know from research for instance,
- [00:11:29.430]like people who have four hours, about four hours
- [00:11:34.620]of control over their time are the happiest.
- [00:11:36.390]People who have less than two hours of time that's under
- [00:11:39.300]their control are the least happy, right?
- [00:11:42.260]So like in the summer when I have all this unstructured
- [00:11:45.090]time, before I start teaching,
- [00:11:47.100]I like to lay out kind of what I want to be doing.
- [00:11:51.210]And if I think about the fact that I have,
- [00:11:53.430]there's literally, what, what did I just say?
- [00:11:55.830]11 weeks of summer that we have before we're back on,
- [00:11:58.776]before we're officially back on contract?
- [00:12:01.770]I've got 112 hours every week.
- [00:12:04.650]That's it. Yeah.
- [00:12:06.870]It sounds like a lot though.
- [00:12:08.220]For somebody who hasn't thought through that,
- [00:12:10.290]112 sounds like quite a bit.
- [00:12:12.540]Oh, to me, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's all I have?"
- [00:12:16.710]Because think about like, my list of things
- [00:12:19.200]that I want to get done is multiple pages, right?
- [00:12:22.710]So like my eyes are...
- [00:12:24.330]I feel like a kid at Christmas where I'm like-
- [00:12:27.210]Yeah, there's going to be all this time.
- [00:12:29.730]Well, and like, "Santa's gonna bring me all these gifts.
- [00:12:32.850]I'm gonna get all this stuff done."
- [00:12:34.200]Do you really want to talk about Santa?
- [00:12:36.090]I mean look, I realize the audience, but
- [00:12:40.714](Guy laughs) Santa was a thing.
- [00:12:42.913](laughs) I am sure it was.
- [00:12:45.420]I was just checking if for, okay now.
- [00:12:48.300]It Santa,
- [00:12:49.380]I mean Santa when I was five, right?
- [00:12:52.620]Yes, okay.
- [00:12:53.590]Santa Santa when I was six,
- [00:12:55.110]that was the year I collected all the mouse traps
- [00:12:56.700]for a year 'cause he freaked me out.
- [00:12:58.676](laughs) I do remember that.
- [00:13:01.900]Like, the inadvertent stress of like stranger danger.
- [00:13:07.410]I don't think my teachers realized how that impacted
- [00:13:10.950]my poor parents and their like Santa scheme.
- [00:13:16.110]Anyway.
- [00:13:18.150]Back to summer. Back to summer.
- [00:13:19.980]Back to summer, back to back to strategizing, right?
- [00:13:22.890]So like I'm not gonna be able to get everything done.
- [00:13:27.780]Right, like I've got all of these plans,
- [00:13:29.880]all these things that I would like to get done.
- [00:13:31.740]And it's when I start thinking about time as finite.
- [00:13:37.350]And this, I feel is one of the things that went awry
- [00:13:40.020]for me this last semester is I stopped thinking
- [00:13:43.050]about time as finite because we often
- [00:13:45.330]like to think about apportionments as percentages.
- [00:13:48.510]And percentages are only valuable when we're thinking
- [00:13:51.450]about them in relationship to the whole.
- [00:13:53.781]To what is the whole?
- [00:13:54.614]Is the whole 10 hours a day
- [00:13:56.880]or 8 hours a day or 20 hours a day.
- [00:13:58.437]And that doesn't really...
- [00:14:00.780]It's always, "Oh, that's 30% of your apportionment."
- [00:14:03.180]Of what apportionment?
- [00:14:04.200]Like talk to me about like concrete...
- [00:14:07.080]How many hours, numbers, right?
- [00:14:08.827]Yeah, how many hours a week.
- [00:14:10.530]And so I'm going back to kind of a...
- [00:14:15.990]I'm gonna kind of nickel and dime my time, again.
- [00:14:19.380]Because I failed to do that and look where I ended up.
- [00:14:24.600]Look where I ended up.
- [00:14:26.790]So for me, I work somewhat similarly.
- [00:14:31.470]My summers are usually not my own.
- [00:14:34.380]I teach in the summer and I usually have grants
- [00:14:38.490]that pay for my time in the summer.
- [00:14:40.440]So I feel like I need to put my time into those grants,
- [00:14:46.080]into the writing that's connected to those grants.
- [00:14:48.900]So it's an opportunity to do.
- [00:14:50.340]But that's because my time is compensated.
- [00:14:52.410]But I use the same methodology.
- [00:14:53.850]That is I lay out tasks.
- [00:14:56.550]I'm a lot more selective.
- [00:14:58.110]So I've learned to be a lot less ambitious
- [00:15:02.250]in summer and give my summer a lot of air,
- [00:15:05.891]to just be in the garden, to spend time with my kids,
- [00:15:10.290]to do nothing, to do a puzzle, whatever
- [00:15:13.050]it is that kind of mellows me.
- [00:15:15.810]That's the opportunity because usually,
- [00:15:20.010]when I teach in the summer, I teach in short increments,
- [00:15:23.580]short workshop, two weeks, three weeks, but not more.
- [00:15:27.510]And that makes those times really, really busy
- [00:15:30.840]and everything else a lot less.
- [00:15:32.760]And I've just let it breathe.
- [00:15:34.530]I also have a switch.
- [00:15:36.270]My switch is the 4th of July.
- [00:15:39.480]I have started thinking about the 4th of July
- [00:15:41.940]is the end of summer.
- [00:15:43.860]That is at the 4th of July, any task that I haven't
- [00:15:48.480]already started is probably not gonna get done this summer.
- [00:15:52.500]So if I've already started it,
- [00:15:54.120]I'll finish it by the time summer is over.
- [00:15:57.060]But if there's something,
- [00:15:58.530]I haven't even started, unless it's a vacation
- [00:16:01.170]or travel somewhere, which obviously I will do.
- [00:16:04.260]But if it's something, a paper or something like that and I
- [00:16:06.810]haven't even started it, I'm not gonna start it anymore.
- [00:16:10.050]I'm just going to try and finish everything
- [00:16:12.720]that's in process and whatever happens
- [00:16:16.380]happens already in fall as part of my apportionment,
- [00:16:20.010]going back to that idea.
- [00:16:21.300]Yeah. And that feels pretty similar to what I do.
- [00:16:25.380]The next step that I do after I've, like, laid out,
- [00:16:28.710]here's the amount of time that I have.
- [00:16:30.390]'Cause I'm not working this entire time.
- [00:16:33.240]I'm not working the entire summer when teaching.
- [00:16:34.773]It's not full-time job, eight hours a day.
- [00:16:37.770]But if I'm thinking about, "Oh, you know,
- [00:16:40.080]every day I can spend about four hours working on stuff
- [00:16:44.100]related to my job, whether that's research or teaching.
- [00:16:47.940]If I do four hours a day, what can I actually get done?"
- [00:16:51.420]And I start breaking it down,
- [00:16:53.550]week one, week two, week three.
- [00:16:57.090]I'm literally looking at my planner on Google Drive.
- [00:17:01.110]I'll link a blank planner in the program notes
- [00:17:04.110]in the video description.
- [00:17:06.720]Where I'm like setting kind of targets for,
- [00:17:11.100]look, if you really do have 16 to 20 hours this week,
- [00:17:15.270]here's what I anticipate you should be able to get done.
- [00:17:17.970]So that by the time, like July 4th is when my class starts.
- [00:17:23.880]And so really any deep work, like you needs to be done
- [00:17:30.870]by the time children's literature starts,
- [00:17:32.910]'cause that class is intense.
- [00:17:35.400]And so planning it out gives me a chance to make sure
- [00:17:44.280]that I'm not setting myself up for failure.
- [00:17:46.770]That I'm actually setting some reasonable
- [00:17:49.800]goals and may actually be able to like,
- [00:17:54.360]achieve a good majority of them, right?
- [00:17:56.370]Like my grad school self would've been like,
- [00:17:59.887]"I'm gonna get all this stuff done in the..."
- [00:18:01.260]And would not have gone through
- [00:18:02.490]that process of sifting stuff out.
- [00:18:08.820]And that usually leads to better time management for me,
- [00:18:12.390]better outcomes for me in terms of,
- [00:18:17.670]you know, living my life,
- [00:18:19.500]feeling like I'm not failing completely at everything.
- [00:18:25.500]Just, you know, failing regular times.
- [00:18:27.105]Occasionally. (laughs)
- [00:18:28.740]You know, just instead of 13 failures a day, maybe just 2.
- [00:18:33.240]So let me take you back.
- [00:18:35.580]So we talked about what we do as faculty.
- [00:18:38.550]What do you think about graduate students?
- [00:18:40.290]What should graduate students think
- [00:18:42.180]about when they're doing summer?
- [00:18:45.420]And they may be taking a class, just like we teach a class,
- [00:18:48.240]they may be taking a class, they may be teaching a class.
- [00:18:50.760]How do you think about their time?
- [00:18:53.940]So I think about their time
- [00:18:54.870]in kind of the same way, right?
- [00:18:56.970]Like, you've got, as a graduate student,
- [00:19:01.530]your summers are really times to be,
- [00:19:07.530]are there things that you wanted to read
- [00:19:10.080]in your field that you haven't?
- [00:19:13.144]Are there things that you want to revisit over the course
- [00:19:17.250]of the last year's worth of coursework?
- [00:19:20.520]Like, my advisor always encouraged me
- [00:19:25.080]to think about summertime as like synthesis, right?
- [00:19:29.580]Because you finally kind of have this break and in the just
- [00:19:36.780]day, to day, to day, fall, spring semester kind of work.
- [00:19:42.840]And that might be the first opportunity that you have
- [00:19:47.310]to think about the connections between the coursework
- [00:19:50.640]that you've had and identifying where are the gaps
- [00:19:55.470]in terms of what it is that you want to do,
- [00:19:58.080]what questions that you want to answer,
- [00:20:00.030]and how you want to answer them.
- [00:20:02.190]Yeah.
- [00:20:04.530]So that's really how I think about, like grad summer
- [00:20:10.260]as an opportunity to, if you're taking a class, great.
- [00:20:14.100]Normally they're a little bit shorter, much more intense.
- [00:20:17.160]You still have that like,
- [00:20:19.200]let me pull these threads together.
- [00:20:21.090]How is this all coming together?
- [00:20:22.560]What do I need to do next
- [00:20:26.220]as you prep for the next semester coming up.
- [00:20:28.680]But also taking an opportunity to like recharge, right?
- [00:20:34.320]Which was the nice thing about the synthesis idea was,
- [00:20:37.717]"Oh, this is all stuff I've already read."
- [00:20:39.240]So I don't really have to do much more new reading.
- [00:20:42.300]I might have to revisit,
- [00:20:43.290]look at my notes, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:20:45.090]But in terms of like stitching it all together,
- [00:20:49.050]it's kind of a meditative-
- [00:20:50.700]And that meditative.
- [00:20:51.900]So I do everything backwards, or I learn post fact.
- [00:20:57.420]And so I took all of my classes,
- [00:21:00.210]including summers kind of in a row.
- [00:21:02.430]My master's and my doctoral degree in about
- [00:21:04.680]two years of four quarters, full on, all the time.
- [00:21:09.330]That worked for me.
- [00:21:10.260]But when you don't take the summer, there are repercussions.
- [00:21:14.190]And the repercussion is I then needed to take a year,
- [00:21:17.370]basically almost a full year, to synthesize
- [00:21:20.040]so I can get to the dissertation phase.
- [00:21:23.040]There was just too much.
- [00:21:24.780]And so think about it this way.
- [00:21:26.730]You either take the summers to do the synthesis,
- [00:21:29.250]or you will need to take a time at one point
- [00:21:31.200]or another because your committee will tell you
- [00:21:33.060]you are not ready to take your comprehensive exam, or you
- [00:21:35.550]are not ready to present to us about what you want to do
- [00:21:39.180]in your dissertation because you have not synthesized.
- [00:21:41.610]And so you're all over the place.
- [00:21:43.050]One way or another, it's going to happen.
- [00:21:45.480]So if you have the opportunity
- [00:21:47.700]to do it in the summer, do it in the summer.
- [00:21:50.760]And that way you starting the next year
- [00:21:54.030]with some synthesis already done.
- [00:21:56.520]And being able to build on that instead
- [00:21:58.770]of what happened to me was I took all of the courses
- [00:22:03.450]and then I had to take all of the courses
- [00:22:05.730]and put them back together in a meaningful way.
- [00:22:07.980]And that really was a complicated task at that point
- [00:22:10.890]because I didn't build as much along the way.
- [00:22:13.470]And so I think that's important.
- [00:22:14.970]That one thing that I would suggest, especially if writing,
- [00:22:18.630]if you don't come with a lot of experience doing writing,
- [00:22:22.230]is if there is a writing retreat of any kind for a short
- [00:22:26.280]amount of time, that is something that I always advise
- [00:22:29.220]doing because it's an opportunity to sit with other writers,
- [00:22:32.100]learn from their process, do your own process.
- [00:22:34.860]You can use it to do some of your synthesis.
- [00:22:37.170]You can do this just to practice and to set you yourself
- [00:22:41.400]up for an easier lift off the following year.
- [00:22:46.175]The other thing I think about graduate student
- [00:22:48.180]is if you are approaching your last year,
- [00:22:50.340]this is your best time to organize your materials.
- [00:22:54.360]Look at our previous shows about going on the market
- [00:22:59.460]and preparing your materials.
- [00:23:01.350]This is probably one of the best times
- [00:23:03.180]because you're not stressed by a semester.
- [00:23:05.700]You can do it slowly.
- [00:23:06.750]You can make sure you have everything.
- [00:23:08.400]And then, as you are getting closer
- [00:23:10.620]to the end of your program, you already have
- [00:23:12.347]all of your materials to be able to send as adds
- [00:23:16.170]go out at the beginning of fall into early winter.
- [00:23:21.780]But you already set most of what you want to create.
- [00:23:25.050]You need to still craft the specifics,
- [00:23:27.750]but you can have the two or three versions
- [00:23:30.810]that you want to send out more or less finished.
- [00:23:33.930]Right.
- [00:23:34.763]And I think the big thing for me within all of that is,
- [00:23:42.630]so in summer you have kind of this unstructured time, right?
- [00:23:46.500]Because just way that the university works
- [00:23:51.000]and functions shifts and changes.
- [00:23:53.550]And so one thing, once you have an idea of what it is you
- [00:23:59.490]wanna accomplish, think through and about how you need
- [00:24:03.210]to organize your time in order to make those things happen.
- [00:24:07.380]So I tend to start with, in my calendar,
- [00:24:11.460]I have a calendar that's my ideal summer week.
- [00:24:15.870]And I lay out within that calendar what I would like my week
- [00:24:21.180]to look like in terms of, "Oh here I'm working on teaching
- [00:24:25.350]stuff, here I'm working on research stuff, oh, here I'm
- [00:24:27.510]out in the garden, here I'm taking a walk, here I'm going
- [00:24:29.760]to the gym, here I am cleaning my kitchen," right?
- [00:24:33.150]Like laying out and kind of accounting for,
- [00:24:38.040]I have all this stuff that I wanna do.
- [00:24:40.470]When am I actually gonna do it?
- [00:24:43.020]And what does that look like week to week to week?
- [00:24:48.480]And then when I start scheduling things, when I start,
- [00:24:53.730]you know, "Oh, let's go for dinner," yada, yada, yada,
- [00:24:57.150]then I know where I have some deviations in my ideal week.
- [00:25:01.530]But I don't tend to leave my calendar clear.
- [00:25:07.560]I tend to make sure that I have reserved blocks of time
- [00:25:13.170]in order to get those kinds of things done so that I know
- [00:25:19.380]that I can actually, again, accomplish this stuff.
- [00:25:23.400]So for me, because most of my work is happening in teams,
- [00:25:27.390]and you're working with a graduate student
- [00:25:29.040]on some of the things that you're planning for next year.
- [00:25:32.610]But because I work on teams, the way I check in,
- [00:25:35.640]at least to things related to work, not to home and all
- [00:25:40.160]of that, is I schedule just sometimes just check-ins.
- [00:25:45.810]15 minutes and I stick to that 15 minutes,
- [00:25:48.480]Five minutes on, "Hi, how are you? How's summer going?"
- [00:25:51.060]And then 10 minutes, "What did we accomplish?
- [00:25:53.220]What's our next task?"
- [00:25:54.840]And sometimes I just schedule writing time with people
- [00:25:58.140]and we sit together and we write and then I'm done.
- [00:26:01.530]The advantage of that setup is it's in my calendar
- [00:26:05.010]so it doesn't need to be on the back of my mind,
- [00:26:07.950]and when am I gonna get to this?
- [00:26:09.840]I end up feeling of guilty about not doing this.
- [00:26:13.230]There are times, this is what's designated for that,
- [00:26:16.020]and when we're done, we're done.
- [00:26:17.790]I'm not piling onto that three more hours of work.
- [00:26:22.080]We sit together for an hour and a half,
- [00:26:23.730]we get wherever we get on the text, and until next time.
- [00:26:27.480]Yeah, no, and that's, I mean,
- [00:26:29.640]I think we're talking essentially the same thing, right?
- [00:26:32.430]Like, I tend to build my really
- [00:26:35.910]heavy stuff into the morning.
- [00:26:37.710]We tend to be most productive in those hours.
- [00:26:40.290]We tend to have less resistance to productivity
- [00:26:45.390]in those first few hours of the morning.
- [00:26:49.500]We're not as tired, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:26:51.690]Maybe? I don't know.
- [00:26:53.700]And then the rest of my day is a little bit more loose
- [00:26:57.000]until I start teaching children's literature,
- [00:27:00.662]and then my ideal week changes, right?
- [00:27:03.660]Because I have to be responsive to students,
- [00:27:05.850]and feedbacking, and it's an online class
- [00:27:08.280]so there's just lots of stuff to do there.
- [00:27:12.840]But I think with...
- [00:27:16.650]I think in order to avoid disappointment,
- [00:27:22.890]you know, as summer winds down, like,
- [00:27:25.147]"Oh, there's all this stuff I didn't get done."
- [00:27:28.200]You gotta make a plan to get it done.
- [00:27:31.350]And I would add to that two things.
- [00:27:34.740]Make a plan.
- [00:27:37.440]Be realistic about this plan.
- [00:27:39.120]So don't push, as we talked about this, don't push
- [00:27:42.150]everything you didn't get done through the year
- [00:27:44.460]and say, "I'm gonna push it forward," because this
- [00:27:46.710]pile will grow larger with this methodology.
- [00:27:50.070]This is where the 112 hours is really, really important
- [00:27:53.550]What's reasonable.
- [00:27:54.630]And then, if you don't accomplish everything that you've
- [00:27:57.750]promised yourself that you were going to do, be ready to let
- [00:28:01.020]it go, at least on our schedule, at the beginning of August.
- [00:28:05.100]Because you've got a couple of weeks.
- [00:28:06.870]This is our schedule, I know different places,
- [00:28:08.820]different countries, it can be earlier, it can be later.
- [00:28:12.210]But two, three weeks before the beginning
- [00:28:15.420]of the year, this is where at.
- [00:28:18.180]let go of everything else because otherwise you're
- [00:28:20.910]just dragging that feeling of failure into a semester.
- [00:28:23.700]This is no way to start a semester.
- [00:28:24.870]Yes, and again, I feel like you and I have sometimes
- [00:28:30.120]had these conversations about like when you focus
- [00:28:33.780]in on the fact that you have 112 hours a week, right?
- [00:28:35.860]Like, are you micromanaging your time?
- [00:28:40.260]But without that, how do you know what time
- [00:28:43.980]you have to actually get stuff done in?
- [00:28:46.980]Like it's a finite resource.
- [00:28:49.380]And how you feel in August is going to be directly
- [00:28:54.450]correlated with how you spend those resources
- [00:28:58.950]during those summer months, right?
- [00:29:01.260]So like, there's a really good book,
- [00:29:03.457]"Time Management for Mortals," that talks
- [00:29:08.670]about the fact that time is not finite.
- [00:29:15.150]And once we stop treating it as finite-
- [00:29:18.210]Or infinite.
- [00:29:19.650]Or Yes. Thank you. (Guy laughs)
- [00:29:21.390]Once we stop treating it as infinite, right,
- [00:29:24.570]Then it does two things.
- [00:29:26.730]It allows us to plan better and it allows
- [00:29:28.770]that time to have more meaning, more value.
- [00:29:32.670]And so if we're thinking about ways to make our summers
- [00:29:35.700]valuable, not just in terms of the work that we do,
- [00:29:38.610]but also our personal projects, our personal passions,
- [00:29:42.480]our what we enjoy, once we start thinking
- [00:29:48.990]about how we're thoughtfully using that time,
- [00:29:54.930]or thoughtfully not using that time.
- [00:29:57.360]Like, "Oh, this is my two hours
- [00:29:59.490]to do whatever I want," right?
- [00:30:02.305]Like that becomes more meaningful, which is super nice.
- [00:30:07.770]Right? Absolutely.
- [00:30:10.519]So that's where I'm at.
- [00:30:11.679]All right. That's where I'm at.
- [00:30:12.512]I'm currently like trying to figure out-
- [00:30:14.700]So, summer is upon us. Summer is upon us.
- [00:30:16.034]Plan for it.
- [00:30:18.150]Plan for it, but be reasonable.
- [00:30:20.970]Yes. Because again, your time is finite.
- [00:30:23.430]What are your high priority projects?
- [00:30:25.590]Like, not everything from my master list of stuff
- [00:30:29.220]I want to get done is gonna get done this summer.
- [00:30:31.920]I have 112 hours a week and I'm not using all those to work.
- [00:30:36.630]So there's some stuff I had to let go of.
- [00:30:40.170]Oh, it'd be really nice to do this,
- [00:30:41.790]but I'm not going to have the time.
- [00:30:44.130]I have to let go of that.
- [00:30:46.260]It stays on a list, but it's not my summer list.
- [00:30:51.630]See, I can be pragmatic at times.
- [00:30:53.550]I can be reasonable. Yeah.
- [00:30:55.603]I can be reasonable.
- [00:30:56.760]Especially when you're not taking an overload.
- [00:30:59.010]I mean, we're still in it, but we're almost done.
- [00:31:00.959](Guy laughs) It's so close.
- [00:31:02.730]It's so close.
- [00:31:05.580]But yeah, I think the, for me personally,
- [00:31:12.480]prioritizing that list, just getting everything
- [00:31:15.330]out that you wanna get done, prioritizing
- [00:31:16.830]that list based upon the amount of time that you have.
- [00:31:18.930]And then building in actionable blocks.
- [00:31:23.340]Block scheduling that out.
- [00:31:24.540]What is your ideal week during this unstructured time
- [00:31:27.900]and sticking with it as best as you can.
- [00:31:31.080]And allowing yourself to re-plan.
- [00:31:35.100]Right, and ooh, one more tip before
- [00:31:38.539]before we're done. Before we're done.
- [00:31:40.110]Like, so I have my priorities, right?
- [00:31:44.190]Like I've identified the things that I absolutely
- [00:31:46.200]have to get done and I've built in time
- [00:31:49.620]plus about 20% just in case stuff goes over.
- [00:31:53.520]And then I have my medium level.
- [00:31:55.380]Like, it would be nice if this got done,
- [00:31:57.390]but it doesn't have to get done.
- [00:31:58.830]So if I find myself with, I don't know,
- [00:32:03.090]a two hour block where I'm like, "I'm bored.
- [00:32:07.050]I can't read, I don't wanna listen to another podcast."
- [00:32:11.010]Unless it's this one. Unless it's this one.
- [00:32:12.203]Because this one is super witty, super smart.
- [00:32:17.490]Then I might look at one of those like, short term,
- [00:32:20.520]medium importance tasks and knock that outta the park.
- [00:32:24.390]Just in case.
- [00:32:26.070]Just in case, you know.
- [00:32:29.820]But yeah, I think
- [00:32:33.270]I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about summer.
- [00:32:37.707]All right.
- [00:32:38.910]Cautiously optimistic.
- [00:32:40.530]We'll see how it goes.
- [00:32:41.363]We'll see how it goes in August.
- [00:32:43.830]Yeah, we'll be back in August for series two.
- [00:32:46.920]For season two.
- [00:32:49.200]Crazy that we've been doing this for academic year.
- [00:32:52.529]Yeah.
- [00:32:53.850]How have you put up with me?
- [00:32:55.860]Well, it's been hard at times. (laughs)
- [00:32:58.440]I am a jerk.
- [00:33:02.040]But you are not that kind of doctor.
- [00:33:04.440]I'm not that kind of doctor.
- [00:33:08.880]Neither am I. So that's okay.
- [00:33:10.890]I mean, that's okay.
- [00:33:13.770]I did hear again this semester
- [00:33:19.140]that I have resting B voice.
- [00:33:28.560]Can I say that on YouTube?
- [00:33:29.820]I don't know. I don't know.
- [00:33:31.590]Or Spotify?
- [00:33:32.670]So that's been interesting.
- [00:33:33.630]So as I've thought about that comment,
- [00:33:36.150]I've been thinking about, "Oh, poor guy's
- [00:33:37.860]been listening to that all semester."
- [00:33:40.286](laughs) This is your podcast voice.
- [00:33:46.020]This is my podcast voice, as opposed to like,
- [00:33:48.840]this is my ASMR voice.
- [00:33:51.084](Guy laughs)
- [00:33:52.380]Maybe that's a new episode that will start a new series.
- [00:33:55.530]ASMR doctoral graduate school.
- [00:33:58.590]Fun things.
- [00:33:59.430]I don't know. Probably not.
- [00:34:00.750]Probably not, but-
- [00:34:02.580]I need more caffeine.
- [00:34:03.870]All right. But, so yeah.
- [00:34:05.250]I think that wraps up season one.
- [00:34:06.930]If you have things that you want us
- [00:34:09.300]to tackle for season two-
- [00:34:11.040]Let us know.
- [00:34:11.940]Not That Kind of Doctor podcast planning.
- [00:34:14.340]I've got like three hours allocated
- [00:34:16.830]to this somewhere in the next 11 weeks.
- [00:34:18.360]So sound off in the comments.
- [00:34:20.370]Say hi, and we'll see you in August or September,
- [00:34:25.530]somewhere around there?
- [00:34:27.420]We haven't quite worked out that timeline either.
- [00:34:29.220]Probably the beginning of September.
- [00:34:30.900]It's a sub-item on that checklist.
- [00:34:34.080]Like, once I get all the sub-items done,
- [00:34:36.510]I can check off the whole thing.
- [00:34:38.280]It's very satisfying.
- [00:34:39.600]All right. Very satisfying.
- [00:34:41.580]So thanks for a great season.
- [00:34:44.940]This has been fun.
- [00:34:46.200]And thank you, Dan for doing
- [00:34:48.390]all the work behind the camera.
- [00:34:50.940]Dan is amazing.
- [00:34:53.040]Whenever I mess up on something, like drop my microphone,
- [00:34:57.600]he comes and saves me.
- [00:35:00.060]So we appreciate you, Dan.
- [00:35:01.440]You can't see him, but he's there.
- [00:35:03.180]He's a standup guy.
- [00:35:05.610]He's also not that kind of doctor.
- [00:35:08.190]All right, friends.
- [00:35:09.360]Plan for your summers.
- [00:35:11.460]We will see you in the fall.
- [00:35:12.792](upbeat music)
The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!
You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.
Log in to post comments
Embed
Copy the following code into your page
HTML
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%; overflow: hidden; position:relative; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex-grow: 1;"> <iframe style="bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; border: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%;" src="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/20941?format=iframe&autoplay=0" title="Video Player: Not That Kind of Doctor - Summertime" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </div>
Comments
0 Comments