How is it going? This week is my spring break week. I was going to have a post for you about planning out my spring break, but the lead-up to NeMLA took more out of me than I thought it would, so here we are. As much as I’d like to take my own advice and really take a full break, with 60 midterms that need assessment and 44 rough drafts that need feedback, I just don’t have that luxury this time. So I decided to work for 2 hours or less each day and spend the rest of my time on personal projects or sitting in the sun with a good book. So far, so good.

Before I get into it, this is your reminder to avoid the comparison trap if it causes you pain (the last thing anyone needs right now). I find others’ goal lists motivating, but if you don’t, feel free to skip this one. For context, I teach a 4:4:2 course load of (usually) writing intensive sections, and I am not tenure-track.

In case you missed it, here’s my Spring 2022 Goals post where I outlined my academic (non-teaching) related goals for the current semester. Here’s the goals list with a strikethrough for the goals I’ve managed to tackle so far.

Goals

1. Present (and be “present”) at MLA
2. Prep & Deliver Center for Humanities Research Talk
3. Finish full draft of Tweetsets article
4. Chair/Present NeMLA panel/paper
5. Share book idea w/ publisher
6. Present at Computers & Writing Conference
7. Mentor grad student(s)
8. Create quality materials for CECiL

Numbers 7 and 8 are ongoing, but I’m really happy with how these goals have gone / are going, so giving myself a little credit. My third goal, drafting the Tweetsets article, is slated for the month of April when I hope to do another AcWriMo style sprint to make it happen. The C&W Conference isn’t until May, but I do need to still register and adapt a previous conference paper for this specific presentation.

Interestingly, a couple new academic writing goals have made their way onto my plate since writing this list. I have done my due diligence in asking for advice from colleagues and friends before committing myself to new things, but I am honestly very excited for these new opportunities. For now, I’ll share that I will be putting a call out for an edited collection – possibly even two edited collections on different topics. I’ll post a note on this blog when it’s official!

I wrap up by saying that I didn’t used to be someone who checked in with her goals regularly. I would set goals, forget about them entirely for a period of time (a semester, a year) and then find them again and be relieved if I had met any of them. Now, I’m trying to be a little more accountable to myself to see what happens.

How are your spring goals going? Do you check-in with your goals periodically? Let me know in the comments!

Stay tuned for more posts this year about teaching, research, and academia. Feel free to follow me on Twitter: @litambitions and Instagram: @ecacademic (where I really nerd out about planning). You can also follow this blog (see the email subscribe button on the home page). ALSO, check out my biweekly-ish podcast called Vita Abundantior in which I conduct interviews with awesome women and ask them how they go about living such abundant lives (available on all major streaming platforms, so please subscribe and review).