Today I was asked if I would be acting as a discussant at the next PhD conference. I'd see the emails about the conference and had already decided that I wasn't going to put a paper forward and that I wasn't going to act as discussant.
Why?
Although I glibly said "It's not my core business", what I really meant is that I had asked the question Does it make the boat go faster?1, and the answer was no.
Having spent sometime thinking about what I do here, there are only three things that make up my "boat" here :
- Teaching well
- Publishing two good articles per year
- Finishing my PhD
So, when I'm asked to do something, if I can't see an immediate and direct connection to making the boat go faster, then I'm probably not going to do it.
"So", I can hear someone saying, "what about your blog?"
Good question. I regard self-reflection as fundamental process in becoming a better manager, teacher, and researcher. This blog provides a semi-structured forum for me to engage in self-reflection, so I'll keep on doing it (as much as ever, and possibly a bit more).
1 Attributed to Peter Blake
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