How’s everyone doing? You may have noticed I skipped a week because I am still adjusting to being productive while caregiving and practicing the art of adding and subtracting to make it work. QOTD: are you a goals person? If you’re a regular reader of this blog you probably are. If others’ goal lists make you feel bad about yourself, go ahead and skip this one. I just find that putting it out there makes it more likely I’ll follow through.

For context, these are the work goals of someone who a) was recently hired into a combo teaching-and-admin role, b) is a new mom to a 4 month-old baby, and c) is teaching three advanced, writing-intensive asynchronous courses this semester.

Spring Semester Goals

If this looks like a lot, that’s because it probably is a bit much considering my present circumstances. HOWEVER, I did think carefully about what to say “yes” to this year and reflected on the fact that I am not going to any conferences for a change – a reality which frees up more time than I usually have in the spring. Also, some of these are relatively quick tasks like the proofs and organizing folders for my promotion materials. The heaviest lifts are definitely the EC Research and MC article draft. *Luckily* I have more than just the spring semester to complete those tasks, so I’m feeling pretty good about this list.

You’ll notice there aren’t any admin goals on this list yet, and that’s because a) it’s a “slow start” to the new role and b) we haven’t really discussed what we might work on for the semester yet. Nevertheless, I’m prepared to Jenga my list a bit to make room for those tasks as they crop up.

The key to checking off a goals list is to set reasonable goals in the first place. Keep that in mind and then decide if you want to be more ambitious than that. Just don’t get too hard on yourself if you don’t make all your goals on an over-ambitious list.

What are your work goals for spring? Let me know in the comments!

You might also like these related posts: So Many Projects, So Little Time, Teaching Tips: Boundaries, and Rest

BTW, I’ve left Twitter for obvious reasons, but you can find me over on Mastadon (which I highly recommend btw) and LinkedIn. Also, I have a substack if you want to subscribe to receive these posts via email!