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Cynthia R. Wallace's avatar

This week has been ROUGH with the tension between my longing for purity of focus on one task (final revisions on a book manuscript due to publisher SOON) and my reality (child’s birthday party, medical appointments, spouse feeling neglected, grad students needing major attention, essays needing feedback, college admin work, laundry, cooking, sick friends to check on, etc etc etc).

All I have the wherewithal to say is THANK YOU.

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Coree Brown Swan's avatar

Yesterday, I implied to my husband that there was no more mac and cheese (because I wanted enough leftovers not to have to cook last night) and made my son cry when I suggested that it was babyish not to go to the loo before bed without a fight. Right there in the trenches with you!

I quite like Laura Vanderkam mostly b/c of her ability to feel very little guilt but I think you have to remember she's got TONS of kids, but also TONS of childcare/money. My paltry academic salary doesn't stretch beyond wraparound care, muchless plural nannies.

But Oliver Burkeman has changed my writing life. He wrote a piece about not writing first thing, and acknowledging that you have other responsibilities. I felt bad for ages that I wasn't writing first thing as academics are urged to to. This was for various reasons, I take my kid to school on days I'm in town and often try to get a few extra miles on the bike en route home, I want to get laundry on the line on a rare Scottish sunny day, I have something urgent in my inbox, the sweet sweet caffeine hasn't yet hit my system yet.

And that's ok... so now I aim to start research by 10am. By then, I'm on my err... 4th cup of tea, have cleared the decks, and can get a solid 2 hour stint before lunch, and often another hour afterwards, which is probably the maximum deep work my brain can handle.

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