14/52 - Unproductive

Realised I missed doing this in March so I'll have to do two letters this month. Today's prompt from my 12 letter word (housewarming) is "U". I have gone for...

Unproductive

There's been a lot of chat about un/productivity online in the last couple of weeks as lockdown lengthens and we all try and adjust to working from home.

I have always been able to work from home for the majority of the year and the rest of the time during term, for as much of the week as I don't need to deliver teaching. Generally I prefer to go into the office - the physical transition helps me get into the right mindset to work and the shift in environment makes me happier. So enforced home working has been a challenge.

There's also the significant thing of this being a crisis and shit being stressful and weird and it being hard to focus on work in a time like this. 

So there's something of a double whammy in how hard it is to be productive.

My biggest problem with being un/productive is that so much of my self worth is derived from being regarded as organised, good on deadlines, and a hard worker. I do attach a moral value to being a hard worker. I recognise all the issues of this - and certainly don't wind up at a Tory-style dismissal of people who cannot work or who cannot find work as valueless. But as with so much in life, I hold myself to a much higher standard than people around me. And I cannot find much to value in myself if I cannot point to things I have achieved and worked at in the recent past.

I sleep better, I feel happier, I am kinder to other people, when I've worked solidly all week and completed a lot of work.

I feel excited at the possibility of a slower pace of life right now. Unfortunately, I think academia is trying to make itself look "important" by generating a lot of extra work and urgency about that work. Students are getting blanket extensions (inexplicably, the entire assessment thing isn't being cancelled or all students being given the option to complete their year next year): staff aren't. 

I was supposed to be taking annual leave from Friday last week through until Tuesday after Easter. We've been told to still take annual leave but what am I supposed to do? It's not a holiday to sit in silence, alone, with no meaningful activity or interaction, for a week.

I keep seeing emails about concessions for people who are trying to work from home and look after their kids and it's like...yes, that must be really challenging. But I am alone. Completely fucking alone. The only needs that exist in my household are my own and meeting them seems optional. If I had other people, structure and communication would be essential. I don't dismiss the difficulties of that. I just don't know why the whole world seems to think that being alone means you are able to work effectively and manage your time. 

I can't be productive. I don't know how to accept being unproductive. I want my employer to formally declare we do not need to be productive (other unis have told staff to forget about hitting any appraisal goals/everything is off for a year). I want to find a place of calm in all of this.


Further reading:
I also finished off a post today on my other blog that I had sitting in my drafts for ages, broadly on the same topic; On tenancity