Setting semester goals

And a “how to write during the semester” workshop!

Hello darlings!

How the hell is it August and yet I have not fully experienced the true joy of a latchkey summer??? I hope you are being as latchkey as possible.

Are you panicking a bit (lol haha so much) about the semester starting soon and how the f are you going to keep up your writing while also doing all the teaching and meetings and service and emails and messages and wearing hard pants (don’t do it!) and eating real food far away from your refrigerator?? Kelly Clancy and I have a workshop for you!!

What: A free workshop on how to write during the semester

When: Aug 26 at 3pm Eastern

Where: On zoom! Sign up here to receive the zoom link!

Why: Because we want to! Free will and a zoom account! Can’t tell me nothin’!

Today’s fun fest is the next system: a system for setting semester goals! Are you tired of systems yet??? Vote below so I know you aren’t a bot.

PS The only acceptable solution to voting yes is to click here and tell me what I should fucking write about instead!!

Why do you need a semester goal system?? Because goals help us accomplish what we want while also living full lives. As academics, our lives are structured by these weird ass seasons we call semesters (although feel free to change to quarters or trimesters or whatever other thing you have going on). And having goals during the semester means that we actually prioritize what is important to us rather than letting the bullshit fill up all of the available space we have.

A semester goals system:

Let’s start by many of the same steps as the monthly goal system. Indeed, if you did your monthly goals last week, this is going to be WAY easier and not has fraught.

<< link to weekly goals >>

Step 1: Joy and life first

Look at a calendar and map out all the vacations, days off, holidays, and fun you have planned. You can use paper calendars. You can use multiple monitors. You can use your whiteboard. You can use an ouija board! Whatever! Find out what is important in your life that is happening in the next ~4 months!

Step 2: Understand your professional commitments

Again, this is just a longer term version of the same process you engaged in for monthly goals.

Here’s where I write down everything that I have committed to everyone, including talks, conferences, coauthors, and time off. This includes conferences you plan to submit to and haven’t yet! Talks you might give! (to your parents over thanksgiving turkey? SURE!).

I separate these into “hard commitments” (i.e., there’s an actual deadline) and “soft commitments” (dreams that will die swiftly). I will put big teaching service deadlines here (i.e., grades due Dec 17, merit committee reviews in Dec, etc) but generally I am just focused on research in this process.

Step 3: List out your research commitments

This list probably looks a lot like the monthly process. I sometimes use a spreadsheets like this one or this one to think about these projects.

(I updated this one from 2020/2021 if you want to see what a backwards look is on this! 17 of 22 projects have been completed, one has an R&R, and 4 are D.E.A.D. Yes, that was six years ago, thanks for asking.)

Step 3: Organize and prioritize your commitments

I then write out the things that I would like to do before the end of the semester, organizing them into three tiers: top tier (the must to dos), middle tier (the like to dos), and bottom tier (the in my fucking dreams to dos).

Now, you might be scared off by this process because it requires that you dream a big fucking dream about how you will get research done while also doing all the other things that you have to do and none of it sounds remotely doable and what are you even doing…

Here’s what I previously wrote about setting big goals and I stand by every single bit of this:

You may look at your list of projects and say: Holy shit. There’s no way on the goddesses green earth that I will have time for all this! And you may be tempted to walk away and keep thinking small, living like a field mouse, moving your to-do list pebble by pebble. But I’m here to say in the nicest way possible: Plan for more. Dream bigger. Do the hard shit that you know you can. The mediocre white dudes out there are dreaming big. They are submitting their work to the top journals. They are putting a hundred projects on their lists. So I ask you to bet on 20 pigs (and read the linked essay if you haven’t already). Be bold. And don’t end up here: “I realized how sad it was that I’d bet so low. That I wouldn’t even let myself imagine receiving as much as I’d hoped for.”

(Please read the essay. Prioritize it over any word I’ve ever written. You should also buy and read the book, which is excellent.)

Here’s the link to what big goals have looked like for me in the past and how much I got done on them. As always, I’m aggressive (it is in the fucking name of this newsletter) and my planning is over the top. But you know what? I get fucking shit done.

Step 4: Figure out some deadlines

Now that you have an idea about what you want to do and when you have to do stuff, make some deadlines for yourself! How are you going to get that APSA paper done? What do you need to do to finish that book by March 1 (asking for myself, of course)? I go through my list of tier one and two and assign them first to month (making to align with my monthly goals!). Don’t give your number 1 priority a goal in December without giving yourself intermediate goals!!

Step 5: Monthly to-do lists

From here, you have the beginnings of a list of what needs to get done over the next few month. So on August 28 (the last Friday of each month!!) when you calendar reminds you to set September goals, you can use this as a head start on your monthly goals

Step 6: Use your goals list!!

Don’t put shit on your to-do list that isn’t on your goal list! Or if you want to work on something that’s on your to-do list, put it on your goal list and assign it a priority! That way, you are actually keeping track of your projects, how much you’ve agreed to work on, and maybe (just maybe) recognizing that if you put a new project on, another project will get less attention (as my friend Christina says “every yes is a no to something else”). Maybe this year, I’ll take my own advice on this!

Step 7: Win

Remember: not everyone is the same kind of goal setter and not everyone will want to be me, setting a ton of goals and failing to meet them. You could take this silly quiz about what kind of goal setter you are if it will make you feel better.

I have a confession — I haven’t yet set my semester goals because I need to check in with three coauthors about their plans! But! Next time, I’ll give y’all a live action of how I create goals (if I can figure it out).

XOXOX

Mirya