Exit Strategy

Grad school is always a busy time, but anyone who's ever been there can tell you some times get absolutely crazy. I just finished a big several-weeks-long push that culminated in a couple days where I was so exhausted I thought my body might give out. Mind you, I was sleeping. I always sleep. I don't do all-nighters unless absolutely necessary, and this push didn't ever come to that shove. But all of my waking hours were taken up by this sustained focus, as late into the evening as my brain would still work.

It's just this thing that happens sometimes in grad school. I've done it before, and I'm sure it'll happen again before I graduate in May. It's just this thing.

This week I dressed up. I thought, if I'm gonna feel bad, at least I'm gonna look good. And so I'd get that little smirk of guilty pleasure as men would stand aside to let me pass, hold doors, and smile at me like they had a chance. It's cheap, I know, but I was exhausted and I'm not above cheap pleasures from time to time.

Yesterday I kept dozing off during lunch at work.

At home, Michael and Gina have been taking care of me-- cooking and things. I was talking to Kiriko the other day (she's in a big push also with a grant she's working on) and we were lamenting how when you get so busy, you'll just grab any crap food that's available to shove into your face. You just don't have time to take care of the regular things, and it doesn't help at all because then you feel worse. She said, 'you can't monitor everything.' So when you get so crazy busy, things fall by the wayside. Like eating well.

After yet another meal prepared for me by the people I live with, Gina said that this was like Comps, and if she had realized it would be like that she would have made sure there was always food just laying out for me so I could wander out of my hole, bleary-computer-eyed, eat a food, and wander back in. She suggested we have a code phrase for these crazy weeks. We can say, "Guys, this is Comps," so that we all know to pick up the slack and take extra care of each other.

This morning I'm finished. Sometimes at the end of a big push, my stress melts away and leaves me with a migraine. It's not so bad this time, as migraines go. But also, sometimes at the end of a big push, I feel at loose ends, like I have to keep doing even though I'm done doing and I deserve a break anyway. But I wander around thinking, "I should do this. No, I should take a break. I should do this! No, I should take a break. Or I could do this!! No! Take a damn break!"

That's what this morning is like.

Gina's code phrase came back to me. 'This is Comps.' At the end of Comps, I knew I'd need an exit strategy, because I no longer remembered what it was like to not be doing Comps. And here, at the end of this big push, it feels strange to not be embroiled in a 14 hour work day. I don't remember how to not be doing that. I need an exit strategy, to transition me back down to my regular productivity levels.

I made a list of 12 things I need to accomplish in the next week. These are my normal weekly deadline things-- updating class slides, grading, researching for papers, etc., etc., etc.

Then I determined not to do any of those things today. Or at least not while I have a migraine. Or at least not this morning. (baby steps)

I covered the list up with a new list. Stuff that I kinda always wanna get done. Stuff I've been putting off for days or weeks or years because it doesn't really matter that much if or when it does get done. Things I wouldn't mind doing. Things I also wouldn't mind not doing.

This is my exit strategy: my anti-productivity productivity list. Today I am only allowed to do these things. Or I can do other things, but not things on my for-realz productivity list. I can only start on my for-realz productivity list when I can be sure I won't work on it for 14 hours straight. With the anti-productivity productivity list, I can ease myself out of the big push by checking things off a list while simultaneously not doing anything too consequential. It's like taking a break without taking a break. It's like not taking a break without not taking a break.

Yeah. Sometimes I feel like a ridiculous person.