I’ve realized part of what made the fall semester so difficult is that I was so overwhelmed, I lost track of many of the routines that sustain me. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, but I can’t remember it ever happening so badly for so long.

So as part of my preparations for the spring 2021 semester, I thought about habits I want to continue from the winter break, resume from earlier in my professional life, or begin anew.

First, daily physical self-care: exercise, eating, sleeping. Of course, these things are not new. But talking with health care professionals about my sleep problems reminded me of the importance of exercising in the morning, getting some daylight, eating breakfast, and taking some time to wind down before going to bed. All these things are more difficult while working at home.

This spring, I plan to continue:

• walking my daughter to day care most mornings, or taking a walk later in the day;
• eating breakfast before (or while) I start work in the morning;
• turning off devices by 9 pm at the latest (or at least that’s my goal!), making a cup of Sleepytime tea, and having a chat with my husband before going up to bed.

Second, daily mental self-care: When I was trying everything to get better sleep, I started learning how to meditate using the Calm app. And when I first met with a sleep specialist, he recommended a daily mindfulness meditation.

He also suggested taking some time in the evening to write down worries and “close the book” on them, without trying to identify solutions. But an important part of this is closing the loop by reviewing those worries the next day, so that I have a system in place for ensuring they are not forgotten. (This is also a premise of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.) Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve found that most of my worries are either beyond my sphere of influence or already resolved (or at least written on my to do list) by the time I review them.

This spring, I plan to continue:

• a daily 10-minute meditation, either with the Calm app or unguided;
• journaling on my worries in the evening while I make my Sleepytime tea.

Third, planning for each work day, setting realistic expectations and keeping my priorities visible.

Sometime after New Year’s I found myself returning to my daily 1-2-3 list. Here’s today’s:

The idea is to write one thing that is big, important, and/or urgent; three things that are small or can be skipped; and two things in the middle. (This is a variant on the 1-3-5 rule.)

I’ve been including things that are on my calendar if they’ll consume significant time or energy; I’ve found it helpful for those to “take up space” so I don’t plan to much work to accomplish outside them. We’ll see how that goes once classes resume. (Some days I may have a 1-2 list!)

I’ve been writing daily habits at the bottom so I can scratch them off as they are done. I considered a sticker chart, but decided what I really want is the reminder to do the tasks; I don’t want to feel bad if I skip them occasionally. That may also change if I need more motiviation once the semester starts.

Today I got my “one big thing” done before lunch, so there are a few more small things scribbled in between.

Fourth, managing communications to limit my stress. What I wrote down initially was “Don’t check email in the evening!” That’s a good rule; nothing ever comes of checking email in the evening. But I also want to keep work email and Slack off my phone. I want to accomplish something from my to-do list before I check my email each day. I want to separate email triage from doing actual work, to the extent possible. And I want to stay close to Inbox Zero so I don’t read the same emails over and over.

Fifth, setting a weekly rhythm right away. This is something I really struggled with last semester, and it caused me a lot of stress as a result. I liked Amy Csizmar-Dalal’s idea of setting a theme for each day. (It’s also an idea from FlyLady, but that’s neither here nor there.

Since I don’t have a sabbatical, my themes look pretty different from Amy’s:

• Monday: Grading. It’s gotta get done sometime, and better to set aside time on Monday than to feel like I should be doing it over the weekend.
• Tuesday: SOS/Serving Our Students. I’m with students from 10 am until 4pm, so I don’t expect to get a lot else done. (Maybe this is a day for a to-do list with one item only!)
• Wednesday: Anti-procrastination Day. I got that one from FlyLady, but in this context it means starting to put things on Canvas for next week. In the fall, by starting on Thursday I wasn’t leaving myself enough time to make decisions, and it was really stressful.
• Thursday: Department Business. We scheduled department meetings for Thursdays.
• Friday: Advising and Loose Ends. I have found that students tend to seek me out for “big picture” conversations at the end of the work week, so why not go with that? And this means I have some designated time for dealing with to-dos from the department meeting, putting those last things on Canvas, or catching up on grading.
• Saturday: The Sabbath. No work unless it’s something on my calendar that I just need to show up for, like senior exams or a conference.
• Sunday: Weekly Review. I didn’t do a weekly review once this fall, and it was a bear catching up after New Year’s. I like Amy’s “Sunday Meeting” to get ready for the coming week. Sunday is also a good day to trade off child care: my husband can take our daughter for a couple hours in the morning, and I can take her for a couple hours in the afternoon to see my parents.

Well, this is the plan, anyway! We’ll see how it goes.