I've been thinking about how best to accomplish projects this summer (especially given the travel the next few months will involve), in part as a result of reading this article in the Chronicle and talking a bit about it with a friend on facebook. I've come to realize that I'm a philosophical multitasker. I like to have a number of projects in the works at once, and be able to bounce back and forth between them. For example, this summer I'm working on (in some stage or other):
- an annotated bibliography
- two book reviews
- expanding and polishing an invited article for a journal
- a book chapter
- an article
- trying to put together an edited volume
- trying to get a completed article accepted
While much of what I'm working on is related (free will, not surprisingly, is the general topic of quite a few of these), I also like to have a project or two that is different from the rest to serve as a 'working diversion' when I get stuck or burned out on the main set of issues I'm thinking about. I also try to make sure that the projects are in different stages of the process. Right now, I'm merely thinking about a few of these, while others are started, and some are in draft stage. This methodology has worked fairly well for me so far, I have noticed that over the last five years the degree to which I multitask in this way is growing. That may not be a bad thing (as more projects are intertwined and I'm asked to do some things), but then again it may.*
I'm curious what the rest of you think, both about my method and what works for you.
OK, enough navel-gazing for now. Back to working on (5).
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*NB: On what I think is a related note, Allison sometimes lovingly chastises me for reading multiple books at once.
I'm finding out that this is my preferred method too. Oddly enough, I'm getting more done by putting more on my plate! This summer I have to redesign the IEP's website, finish revisions on a paper for publication (done actually!), run an experiment (which requires getting human subjects approval first, though), write a joint paper, teach a metaphysics class, write a chapter of my dissertation, and write a book review. That, at least, is the plan.