Corralling the calves
I’ve always been one for multi-tasking. From when my children were small and I juggled their needs with my freelance work editing scientific books and journals, to when I had a ‘dual post’ with a busy suburban parish and a Diocesan role and began to learn the wisdom of the person who told me that two half-time posts really meant one and a half times the work! It seemed all too easy to spend all my time feeling guilty because I felt I should be doing something different from what I was doing. This in itself is energy-sapping and seemed to make both things I needed to be doing a struggle as I tried to choose between them.
I’m nearing half-way through my part-time PhD, and I seem to have spent way too much time trying to find a way of working that enables me to feel that I’m spending ‘enough’ time on what needs to be done. I’ve tried splitting my week, and spending half of it on my (voluntary) church work and the other half on the PhD. Or spending mornings on the PhD and afternoons on ‘other ministry’. But life doesn’t split neatly like that, particularly when my PhD is about the dynamics of people in churches. I’ve also tried dedicating two weeks in the month solely to the PhD, but that didn’t work either, too many church meetings seemed to find their way into those two weeks, and then there’s Christmas and Easter….
But I think revisiting my vocation to academic study, and trying to get back to the basics of discernment are helping me find a better way. It’s all about making a container for what needs to be done, or coralling the calves! So I’ve gone back to basics, making a ‘to-do’ list and then planning when I’m going to do what is necessary and setting a time limit on how long I can give to a task. I note down everything that comes in that needs an action. This stops me from wasting time e.g. reading a long email that arrives when I don’t have the time to complete the actions that it requires. I just note it onto the list, and leave it for when I have time and energy to deal with it. I’m also not dealing with things as quickly. I’ve found that nothing is really ‘that’ urgent, and taking time for a considered response is often better.
It seems that there is a finite number of decisions that each of us can make in a day, so actions that need a decision need to be planned in to a day when I can do this. That way, decisions don’t take up all my head-room and colour everything. This leaves more time for the ‘deep work’ that’s necessary for the PhD. Church-related ‘work’ can creep into every minute of every day, but planning in this way also helps me to have stretches of time where I’m not doing ‘church’ related stuff, but have an openness to other things. I’m sure this is helping me to be more creative.
And finally, I’m learning how to allow others to do some of the work. So, for example, it’s much simpler to deal with grant applications by editing what someone else has put, rather than trying to complete the form myself. And asking for advice from the expert is another time-saving strategy. They’re the expert, so questions are better on their desk than on mine! And finally, a brief review of the ‘to do’ list at the end of the day is enough to convince me that I have done all that absolutely has to be done today, and I can enjoy a more creative evening!