I need a reboot day. After weeks of balancing precariously on the edge of total disorder in my teaching, research, and writing, I’m just about to fall off the cliff. I even had to violate my Nature/Nurture Sunday to do some grading that I had put off for weeks. And still I’m not up to the bare minimum of where I need to be. And that’s a problem, because I am so very, very close to being done with a lot of important things. Top of the list: finishing and filing my dissertation so I can get hooded this June. I’ve promised my committee the last round of edits by the middle of March, and that’s going to take some late nights. When I start to think about that plus teaching plus an article I’m almost done with plus a conference at the end of this month and so on, I feel like I’m just about to lose it. So I’m calling a time out. Not a day off from work, but a day to take a step back and remind myself of which work is important and to figure out how to get that done. The problem, of course, is that every second I take to plan is a second I take away from doing the work itself. But right now, I need to figure out where I’m going and how to get there. An important process, I’d argue, for every academic, and especially those just starting to learn how to balance all the fun and taxing work we do.