My List is Also Out of Control

I could make a list of things that are out of control.  I already wrote a screed to the disaster that is my inbox.  This is about the superfund site that is my work to do list.  I guess part of the problem here is that in blatant disregard for Inbox Zero orthodoxy my inbox and my to do list are directly related.  In fact, part of the problem with my inbox is that I used to (well I still do) have a folder slugged "to do" (it is just currently empty) and also a folder called "follow up" (which is also empty).  The "follow up" folder has a subfolder called "addresses" (not empty) which are full of emails with peoples' updated email or physical addresses that at some time or another I meant to transfer into my address book or contacts.

Hey wait, there's another thing that is out of control: my contacts.

I just had the thought though that if I stepped through the contents of the "addresses" folder on my iPhone it might automatically detect new information and prompt me to put it in a contact.  That might be a worthwhile exercise.  Although some of the emails in there are pretty old.  I guess I risk "updating" someone's contact with archaic information.  Who says technology doesn't make life simpler?

There is a week and a day left in the semester.  My to do list is always out of control at this point, and in some ways it is pretty normally in a position to get worse in short order.  That is true this year too.  It stems from the accumulation of assignments that need grading and the fact that there are assignments coming in until the last day of class (and often after the last day if I allow it).  This semester there's no Semester Reviews, so I guess there's really no reason not to have my traditional "Final, Final Deadline" much, much closer to the day grades are actually due.  Usually I forgo that deadline for one earlier prior to the start of reviews.  No reviews, no deadline?  Makes sense.

I have four classes this semester: Production Planning, Scenic Fabrication and Installation, Entertainment Rigging, and Studiocraft CAD.  The first and the last there are the largest grading stacks because they are big classes, more than 20 people.  ScenoFab has like 15 and Rigging has less than 10.  Between all those classes I have like 10-12 assignments to grade, each with an instance (I hope) for each student in the class - well, some are partner assignments so that cuts down the submissions.  There's also at least three assignments still to come in, and even though I cancelled the final exam in ScenoFab and there is no final in Production Planning there are finals to grade for CAD and for Rigging (oh, and I have to write the final for Rigging too).

Also I have one thesis to read.  And one student who seems fairly motivated to move a future thesis project along before we're done.

Normally that would be sitting under a que of work to do for Production and a slew of operations meetings.  Those things are less but not non-existent this year.  Most of what I did today was Production related, with a little operations work thrown in.

And of course usually I could do this in a frame where Gib5on was in school and Sabian was in daycare.  Not so much under the new normal.  Finding time was hard before.  Now it is even more complicated.

Still, time is running out.  Just like my students are trying to find another gear in order to get all their work finished I am going to have to find another gear in order to complete mine.  I am right out of room to move the goalposts.  All that is left to do is to finish or not, and not really isn't an option in this scenario.

So I should stop typing here.