Too Late to Day-dream?

I have not been blogging much during this family vacation at the beach.  Turns out I am doing something right.  This piece by a McGill prof identifies how we pay attention to stuff and how important it is to let our brains meander.

This has not been a particularly productive summer for me. Last summer, I wrote a new book (under review).  This summer, I started a new project and did not make much progress.  I did better un-stalling long moribund projects (conference deadlines are a beautiful thing, sort of).  One of my problems is that I have not followed the advice in this piece--to cordon off my time so that I don't do social media stuff when I am trying to do work.  Turns out that the world today is super-distracting!  Who would have thunk it?

Ok, so I was aware of that before.  But the importance of daydreaming/meandering highlighted here is suggestive.  I probably should listen to fewer podcasts when I am driving/exercising since podcasts mean focus and thus not much creative meandering.  Good thing I don't have a waterproof device for listening to podcasts in the shower.

The good news is that I have been pretty un-focused on this vacation--I have not done much in the way of academic work, I have not blogged, and I have not been on twitter/facebook much expect to post silly pics.

The better news is that this piece does justify something that I do regularly--naps FTW! 

The other key bit of news is that we should feel less guilty when we are not getting stuff done--because that is when we do get bolts of inspiration.  I surprised my relatives by discussing the relevance of guilt in the academic enterprise--they were horrified.  Like anything, perhaps not bad in moderation.   Distractions can be good:


On my last day of vacation, it is time for me to stop blogging and start doing the sunscreen thing.  See you on the other side (of the vacation).