Conversation

I've had some good comments and wanted to reply to some of them.

In a comment on my post about talking too much and listening too little Isabel writes:

I see NaBloPoMo from the opposite perspective. I'm using the list as an opportunity to visit as many as possible and "listen" to some new voices.

That's a good point. I'll try to read some new blogs this month. I'll let you know if I come across any gems. So check out NaBloPoMo if you haven't yet.

Katya asks:

congrats on being so productive on your non-work day! I usually do absolutely nothing on non-work days and thus always have cleaning, laundry, dishes and errands to do on every other day. Grr. So do you ever get a do absolutely nothing day? or is that forbidden in PhD land?

The thing is, if you count up how many hours I'm actually working it might even be under full time (this may change as I mover through the program...). Part of the problem is defining when I'm working though. People with 9 to 5 jobs are working when they're at work, even when they're chatting with co-workers, playing solitaire, etc. So how much of the time I spend distracted from work is the equivalent of that and should count as work time, even though I'm not productive? It's hard to be your own supervisor but I'm getting better at it. Of course there's a huge freedom there, too. The thing I need to avoid, and one of the reasons for enforcing a day off to play and keep house, is time where I'm not getting work done but I'm trying to make myself work so I'm stressed out from unproductively worrying about work, if that makes sense.