Cultivating Mental Silence

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Finding time for "side-projects:" A technician's perspective!

Finding time for "side-projects:" A technician's perspective!Listening to one of my favorite podcasts [Cortex](https://www.relay.fm/cortex/21) recently...one of the topics was how to manage side-projects. My big take away was figuring out how...if you have a full time job...to fit "side-projects"...other things that matter to you...in. For me...I teach full time...that's my major project. It consumes the majority of my waking day, from 7:15 am until 4:30 pm daily. And...thanks to my doctoral studies...specifically...learning how, over time...to do 2 full time jobs (teaching and my doctoral work) within the course of a given day...I've become a "self-proclaimed" time management expert. I would not have survived my doctoral experience had I not learned how to manage the time I have available on any given day. I've talked about this before. However, I feel that it's important to come back to this notion of managing time for it is this ability that opens up time to do other things...like "side projects."CGP and Myke (the hosts of the podcast) mention that for some of us...we become technicians...really good at the mechanics of what we do for a living. How does one become a technician? I would submit that one way this happens comes as a result of constant reflection (like I'm doing in this post) on whatever our practice happens to be. Another factor is time...for me...I've been at "this" for 26 years. I'm not where I am just because I've taught for 26 years. Many of these years have been spent thinking critically about my practice while simultaneously learning its mechanics. Aligning myself with a strong community of educators who support me in my daily efforts has also been a crucial component. I truly would not be writing this post if it were not for certain people within that community!! What I'm trying to say is, "it" does not happen on accident.Now that I think of it...becoming a technician is a prerequisite for being able to launch and sustain "side projects." Even though I consider myself a technician/expert at managing time...I still feel that there is room for improvement. I wrote about this last week...thinking about how to refine the 90 minutes I spend daily at school...before the kids come in. One week out from that thinking...I feel that the ideas I contemplated in that post ended up being time well spent. I feel like that 90 minutes is more purposeful...I feel like I'm not attempting that trick of the mind known to us as "multi-tasking." Re-examining this 90 minute block of time has streamlined the path for getting all of my "teacherly" duties completed within the context of the school week (Monday-Friday). Rarely do I have to take things home to work on over the weekend and I feel that over time, with this re-fined 90 minutes, the occasions I do find myself bringing things from school home to work on will lessen even more! This has recently afforded me time on the weekend to work on my recent "side project" writing my book.Re-dedicating myself to my book is something that, for the past 2 weeks, has been happening on the weekend...in 90 minute blocks of time...early Saturday and Sunday mornings. I wanted to see what would happen if I used some of this "extra" time doing something I love...write! Prior to starting this experiment...I was occasionally trying to do things at night, during the week (and the weekend) feeling bad when I didn't get anything done on a week night because I was tired...tired from my...major project...teaching! In 2 weeks time (90 minutes per day on the weekends) I have started AND completed one chapter (the third of what I think is going to be a 5 chapter book) and set up things to write the 4th chapter. At this rate...I could potentially get that 4th chapter written (draft of course) in another 2 weeks time...finishing the book...at this same rate...in about 1 month.