My wife won't take my word for it, but I get busy when school's out,
just in a different way. Every personal project that I enjoy working
on, with the exception of school work, gets pushed to the back of my
desk from the third week of August until the second week of June.
During the 8 weeks during which I am not teaching, I clean up the piles
all over my office. In the process, I discover the truth of Napoleon's
mail management technique,(I first learned about it in 1977,
while attending a time management course for Bank of America officers)
as described in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay entitled
Napoleon, or The Man of the World,
quoted on the blog of
Tim Ferriss:
...[Napoleon's] practice, when
general in Italy, in regard to his burdensome correspondence. He
directed [his secretary] to leave all letters unopened for three weeks,
and then observed with satisfaction how large a part of the
correspondence had thus disposed of itself and no longer required an
answer
Thus, the first action I take on many of the piles is to toss them out.
Summer is also when I handle the big projects. For
example, cleaning out my electronic gear closet, which
consists of lots of cables and software from long-gone computers, a
random assortment of audio/visual gear, and other accouterments that
are no longer necessary. I also hope to begin my "cull the keepsakes"
project, in which I would like to sit down with my daughters and throw
out the souvenirs of my life they aren't interested in. One last look
should be enough for me, and, at this point, I have to admit that no
one is going to want to place my "papers" in a library somewhere. Heck,
no one is going to want to place my books in a library somewhere. And
then, of course, there is my version of "Seven-up," the documentary
which follows a group of English school children from the age of 7 to
the age, so far, of 56. It inspired my wife and I to videotape our
girls every five years, talking about subjects like religion and love.
We now have them from age 5 to age 25 and 30, but the tapes have been
lying on my desk for years, unedited. It is time for me to suck it up,
sit down in the editing studio, and spend the time needed to create the
new editions. Plus, I hope to do more original writing in my blog, and
to read the racy, self-published journalism novel someone sent me after
seeing my
journalism
book web site.
And of course, next week is my annual trek to Los Angeles to see old
friends; in addition to
Auld
Lang Syne, I am finally headed to Simi Valley, not
because of my enormous respect for Ronald Reagan (that respect is quite
contained), but because there is a full-size Air Force One there. I
have always been fascinated by Air Force One. My best friend from
college, Norman Sandler, was a frequent passenger when he was a White
House correspondent for United Press International during the Reagan
and Bush I years. I look forward to setting foot on the "real" thing,
albeit the "real retired thing."