Summertime, and the living is purposeful

I've been thinking about writing this post since I submitted spring semester grades, but here is my dilemma: I get a little ambitious about seasonal planning. That is euphemistic, actually: it would be more accurate to say that I am a NUT about seasonal planning. This is beneficial, in that doing half of a preposterous list of tasks means that a lot of tasks get finished. This is bad for me, in that I spend too much time feeling vaguely stressed that only some of my self-assigned tasks are getting done. It also causes some stress to my more sensitive children, who pick up on that subcurrent of Must! Do! All! The! Things!

So I have been a little reluctant to write this post, even though I mostly want to write this post. Perhaps we should move on from my somewhat troubling inner landscape to the actual planning part of the post.

The biggest thing is that I don't want the summer to slip away in a haze of checked-out clicking on random Facebook links. I've been thinking about giving up FB altogether -- it can be such a useless time suck. I think I'm going to require everyone at home this summer, including me, to be deliberate about checking out -- to keep screens in one spot with a clipboard, and require users to aver that they have done the stuff that needs doing at that point in the day and to state their purpose for the next x minutes of screen use. (Is this a wacky idea that my children will need to discuss with their therapists in their 20s? It could be a wacky idea that will cause more harm than good. I'm just so weary of computer drift.)

The other thing I'm thinking about comes from reading the new edition of Getting Things Done: I want to channel my inner Dave Allen this summer. This means being diligent about capturing stuff that needs doing, defining what needs to happen next with it, and then actually doing it.

But...okay...I am still me and I am still going to use Holly Pierlot's framework to spell out goals for myself for the next 12 weeks.

Prayer: Get to a weekday Mass each week. Respond to 6yo's request to resume evening prayer -- work on tying it to dinnertime.

Person: GET ENOUGH SLEEP. Use up CSA vegetables. Exercise at least 4 days per week. Nibble away at Kindle backlog, knitting backlog, and annual reading goals, while also remembering that it is silly to stress out about leisure activities. Blog a bunch-- let's aim for 5x per week.

Partner: Have fun with my husband. See Shakespeare. Run a 5K together.

Parent: There's some habit formation stuff that needs to happen here, but I need to think about it a bit more before school lets out. That's my task for this week-- think about habit formation for kids.

Provider: Finish poster. Submit grant-funded paper, which will require a fair amount of getting over myself in addition to the usual paper-writing tasks. Prepare syllabi for fall and rough out syllabi for spring. (I am deliberately streamlining this list, pushing away thoughts of all the stuff I could do...) Okay, I feel really shy about including this here but I am doing it anyway. I have a novel idea I have been thinking about since 2003. I have an outline; I have some scenes drafted; I have some backstory roughed out. And I have a HUGE mental hurdle about writing a novel. This summer I want to squelch my inner critic (a kind, gentle sort of squelching, you understand), and just do some writing. Like Trollope, cranking it out day by day without any hand-wringing. Gulp.