Maddening Monday

congerdesign via Pixabay

I'd love to say that this post is popping up in the evening (okay, at night) instead of earlier in the day because I was taking my own advice from last Friday and wasting some time, but that's only partially true. The truth is, I'm most efficient at the beginning of the week. As the week wears on and I wear down, you're more likely to find me not only taking a break, but thinking I deserve one as well.

But on Mondays, I usually do a good job of staying focused. This sounds like a good thing, but it can backfire when it comes to blogging. When I wasn't teaching on Mondays, I got my blogs posted first thing in the morning. I got up, sat down and pounded out a post. Some days, I procrastinated for a bit at first, especially if I didn't have a topic, but the post got written before I got distracted by other pursuits.

Now, with a daily teaching schedule (again), I begin my day by preparing for class. Then I teach class and often continue in the coursework frame of mind for a large chunk of the day, planning, grading and communicating with students. By the time I sit down to write my post, I'm tired and ideas seem to flee instead of flocking.

The problem is that both writing and teaching require creative energy. While this is a good thing for me, it's a bad thing for my writing. My teaching occurs on a regular schedule and has firmer deadlines than my blogging, so class prep can be a bit of a bully, edging my writing out of the way until it's good and ready to relinquish its time. By the time I do what I have to do for my classes and perhaps waste a little time as well, much of the day is gone.

And so here I sit at the end of the day, proving that portioning out my creative energy and balancing my day still eludes me. It's ironic, though, that it seems to elude me most on the day that I'm most efficient at everything else.

This semester, my classes start at the same time every day and, if things go according to plan, next semester will work the same way. I'm hoping this consistency will mean that I find my groove -- eventually -- and figure out how to pour out my creative energy in just the right dosages along the way. Or, perhaps I need to restructure things, but one thing's for sure.

Every Monday, I get a new chance to make it work.