People ask me about my daily routines, so I thought I'd share something here. Like the vast majority of you all, I have care work that is unavoidable (plus housework, which personally I hate). I usually try to avoid READING Twitter in the morning because it really screws me up.

So, I wake up, wash my teeth, wash my face, start up the coffee, make my bed and launch my laptop. If I see urgent @ replies on Twitter, I do read and respond to those. If nothing seems urgent, I go on @buffer and pre-schedule 10 tweets of blog posts I think that might be helpful

If you're wondering, yes, I'm wearing PJs right now. From 4 am to about 6 am, which is my prime writing/research/thinking time, I don't actually change into work clothes. My Mom tends to wake up rather late, which gives me enough work hours to put in a decent 6-7 work day before

I think if you've followed me for long enough (and some of you have followed me for 12 years!) you'll probably know that whatever I write about comes with the proviso that I am VERY intense, but you don't have to be to implement ANY of my techniques/strategies. Be and live CHILL.

Obviously parents (and specifically Moms) face very specific challenges that I don't outline here, as do folks facing disabilities. I always acknowledge this.

Anyway, what helps ME is to start myself up with something very chill. I either read an article, a book chapter or...

... an article. I highlight, scribble. Maybe I take a few notes in my Everything Notebook. I always recommend to "ease into the day". Particularly because my brain doesn't operate before the first coffee.

Perhaps 15 minutes is all you have to focus on work throughout the day.

This is totally understandable. We're in a crisis situation. We're not doing online learning, we are doing "emergency remote teaching" (I stole that phrase from someone and I'm going to try to find who said this on Twitter so I can credit them).

Anyhow, those 15 minutes...

A lot of people in the #AcWri field will say "USE THOSE 15 MINUTES TO WRITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN".

I used to be one of those.

I think the best approach is to take those 15 minutes to CENTER YOURSELF. If 15 minutes is all you can focus b/c of all the shit going on, THEN...

... those are very well spent 15 minutes.

In 2014, both my parents underwent surgery at the same time, and I was all by myself to take care of BOTH of them. Obviously I was not able to do any work for months. My parents live in separate houses, so it was a logistical challenge.

So, when I had 15 minutes, I did not write like there was no tomorrow.

No. All I did was to journal and note to myself what I was thinking that could potentially, when my parents were healthy, help me move my work forward.

I see this crisis and think back to those years.

Eventually, both my parents recovered and I was able to go back to work. This was, obviously, before my eczema/dermatitis/psoriasis/chronic pain/chronic fatigue manifested itself. I went back into work full steam and that was that.

But I always remind myself of when I really...

... basically had only 15 minutes to myself and I think about how important remaining centered was to me and my mental health.

Personally, maintaining some semblance of association with academia makes me feel grounded, so even if I am overwhelmed, I try to always read a bit.

*apparently more than one person mentioned emergency remote teaching and online learning* https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%22emergency%20remote%20learning%22%20%22online%20teaching%22&src=typd