Evaluation of my summer 2022 goals

At the beginning of every semester, I evaluate (publicly) my goals of the previous semester.

Summer 2022 contained three big blocks for me: time in Ecuador, time in the Netherlands, and holidays. As such, I planned a bit differently than when I am a full semester at one place.

Here’s what my goals were like and how I did with them:

• Focus on big-level planning and thinking with my PhD researchers: This goal was one of my main priorities for my trip to the Netherlands. After supervising at distance for more than two years, it was absolutely necessary to catch up face to face, spend time together over coffee and lunches, and set aside time for big-level planning for the next year(s), the research question, and other deep-level issues.
• Submit 3 papers. I submitted two papers – one just came back with major revisions and another is accepted and published by now. I also worked on various other papers, but these are mostly ongoing.
• Give a very good keynote lecture at IABMAS. It’s hard to judge for myself if it was very good, but I gave my keynote at IABMAS. I was the first keynote the morning after the conference dinner, and I was surprised to see that many people still showed up.
• Get my sleep debt down. My sleep debt peaked while I was in the Netherlands, but I didn’t feel tired. I’m not quite sure what causes this – whether it is the long days during summer in the Netherlands that make me need less sleep, or if it is the altitude of Quito that causes me to sleep lighter in Ecuador and need more hours to compensate. Anyway, I came out of my summer holidays with only 2 hours of sleep debt.
• Spend time on creative writing. I wrote almost daily while I was in Ecuador, but couldn’t keep it up while I was in the Netherlands and had not planned on keeping it up during our vacation.
• Hopefully move to our new house in August? It’s not finished yet – hopefully it will be finished by September and we’ll get to move in soon.
• Take a vacation with my family – for the first time since 2018. Yes, and we enjoyed it very much – I guess this was the most important part of my summer 🙂