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Loading...Now that I have retired from UNC (but not from anything else!) I’ve had several people ask me about my personal work habits. In reply to the most recent query from a blog member, I remembered I wrote a post about them some years ago. Looking back (and looking now), I don’t necessarily recommend my approach. More than a bit excessive, and I’ve eased up a good deal! But, if you like getting a lot done….
Here’s what I said then, in the first year of Covid….
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Blog members sometimes ask me about my work habits: I seem to get a lot of writing done in addition to the day job as a university professor and doing the blog and what not. How’s that happen exactly? I should say that
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All that does not give us a clue as to what makes you fun. I was aware when on a trip with you that wherever a group had gathered and there was laughter, you were in the middle. Your writing expertise is nothing compared to how you told stories about family members, making them those we had to meet, if ever possible.
Thanks Judith!!!
Thank you for (re)sharing these thoughts!
I can see why you have accomplished so much in your life, that kind of discipline is rare and, I guess, a prerequisite for success. I had already sensed that you handle your time with extreme assiduousness.
I too never watch TV, but I do spend a lot of time on YouTube -mostly watching educational stuff (like your content or theoretical physicists and cosmologists) when doing chores or driving and chess when I have my meals! I think YouTube can be a useful tool for one’s intellectual growth -if used correctly and wisely of course (that is, if you use it to learn more about the Gospel of Mark and you don’t swipe endlessly watching funny clips with cute cats and dogs).
I think that probably the most impressive skill of yours is reading the material “you have to read” in short time. I am terrible at this. If I don’t love a book and it is one of these that I “have to read”, it can take me months to finish it!
I notice that you also work in occasional re-posts from your blog archives. This is a win-win! It saves you time, and gives newer blog members, like myself, a chance to read a post I may never have searched for. I am also a task-oriented personality. I have a background in project management and now have my own sole-proprietorship (graphic design freelancer). Oh and I’m a mom—doesn’t require much though (LOL). So, I too know what it means to manage time and energy efficiently. For me, biblical studies is that special thing I want to do—that I make time for. Even now, I’m on the elliptical as I read and respond. And I wake up every day at 5 to get an hour of study in before the day starts.
And here I was thinking you are secretly twins because I couldn’t figure out how you could do the blog, the teaching, the books, the podcast, the interviews, the travel, the research….without being in two places at once!
Wow!
All I can say is that I envy your discipline and focus. I wish I could do half as well!
Thanks for reposting this old post, Bart. A related question I have for you, and hope you will write a post about it, is how you organize and store your research for writing. I’m a pastor (now retired, so it doesn’t matter as much, but I still do a lot of teaching), and I have struggled with how to store and organize notes for teaching and preaching. Do you do it the old fashioned way–throwing written notes in a paper file? Do you have a sophisticated digital storage system? The information I have to keep is relatively small. I can’t image the amount of research you have to keep. I was a student of Walter Brueggemann’s and was amazed at what he could recall. He never used a computer!
I’m not sophisticated in how I do it, that’s for sure. But I’m not back at the paper stage either! I take notes on what I read (both the content and my reflections/criticisms of it) on my laptop and file them electronically in folders, subfolders, sub-subfolders, etc. It’s very easy to find what I need simply by going to the folder covering the topic (or subsubsubfolder) I want and finding a name or subject with a simple search function.
How much of your scholarly publications and your general reader publications use the research of the students you supervise as Ph.D. candidates?
Very little indeed. Hardly ever? I believe I’ve only referred to my graduate students’ work on a coulple of occasions (actually , I can think of only two?), and then just briefly with attribution and acknlowlegment. But I laud them a lot!
Achieving a state of “flow” in today’s world is a major accomplishment !!!
Bart, I’m so impressed that you make fries from scratch. Do you have Belgian ancestors, by any chance? I definitely do the same.
On our two trips to Greece I’ve noticed how you’re able to take a little time off from the group to go work on something that needs you. You do have an amazing ability to focus.
Right! Haven’t had a frozen fry in decades. It only takes a few minutes to slice ’em up from scratch. Sure wish they were healthy….