I feel like I need some ground rules, like "put away my home laptop and use my work laptop, so that all my files and everything are at least easily accessible."
Maybe even a schedule!
I've never had a sabbatical. But of course I've also never had an especially heavy teaching load, so it's not seemed like I've needed one. Regardless, I'm told, pretty reliably, that the key to being productive during a sabbatical is to break up a project into bite-sized chunks and focus on masticating one of those at a time during tightly time-bounded periods. As in, "I'm going to write this paragraph of this essay today. When that's done, I'm going to plan my next task, figure out when I'll work on it, and then take a break until it's time to get started on that task. But when it's time to get started on that next task, I'm going to do that rather than going to Nordstrom Rack or visiting The Toast. Then I'll plan the next chunk of work before I take a break to go to Nordstrom Rack or visit The Toast."*
And so on.
My guess is that this strategy works for pretty much any project at any time, but, having never tried such a thing, I wouldn't know from personal experience. Which is to say, your anxiety about your sabbatical is the very definition of a first-world problem, and I deprecate you (and your The Toast) for having mentioned it.
* I don't know what The Toast is.
2 without seeing 1. You are hereby doubly deprecated for pwning me.
Another problem is that I don't have a clear project. I have a couple ill-defined areas, and the danger is that I get swamped doing background reading and never actually start working on a problem.
A sensible person might propose that I spend the summer doing background reading! WHATEVER.
Which is to say, your anxiety about your sabbatical is the very definition of a first-world problem,
Don't people at universities in developing countries get sabbaticals?
The first rule of sabbatical is: You do not talk about sabbatical.
Wait. No. That's something different.
I think the first rule is: You do not gloat about sabbatical.
5: do scholars at universities in the occupied territories get sabbaticals? I think you know the answer, Jewess.
Don't you have an intensely personal project to be quite justifiably busy with this semester?
Anyway, I think you could employ the strategy outlined in 2 for a literature review: "I'm going to read this article today and make sure I understand it. Then I'll do the same for these two articles, which are shorter and/or less complex, tomorrow. At the end of three weeks time, I should have good notes about a body of literature that I want to understand and perhaps even the outline of a problem* that I'd like to solve. Then I'll think about how I'm going to solve that problem and get started!"
* In the broad sense of this word.
Also, were I you, I think I'd focus on pedagogy during my sabbatical. It seems like you prefer teaching to research, so why not spend some time thinking about how to enjoy yourself more/be more effective in the classroom? You could revamp some courses or create a new one or whatever.
do scholars at universities in the occupied territories get sabbaticals? I think you know the answer, Jewess.
I wouldn't say that south-central Texas is occupied. The border passed over most of the people against their will, but it's not disputed.
11 is much more intrinsically interesting to me than a pure research project. One of the ostensible motivations for this sabbatical was that my research skills have been laying fallow for too long and I should keep them from getting too rusty, though.
10 is good advice. I'm interpreting it as:
1. take planning very seriously.
2. Set aside time up front to schedule and chunk tasks.
3. include time to revisit the plan, schedule etc in the plan itself, and modify as things go.
9: That's kind of my ace in the hole. (Not that Ace.) I'm pretty sure no one will give me too much grief if it's an unproductive semester, but you know, guilt. And actual desire to have a productive semester.
I'm due for a sabatical in a couple years. I'm still trying to figure out if "learn Spanish on a Costa Rican mountain top" qualifies as a legitimate project in the eyes of my organization.
Is there a colleague or friend in a similar situation who could help hold you accountable? Share goals, self-imposed deadlines, successes, exciting ideas?
That is an excellent idea. I should check who is also on sabbatical this semester.
Also I set up a weekly reminder on my phone just now that I have to have 3 specific, measurable, I-hate-myself-but-I'm-using-those-words-anyway goals for the week by noon on Monday.
Would it help if everyone here shouts "WHAT ARE YOU DOING READING UNFOGGED HEEBIE? GET BACK TO WORK!!!" every time you post or comment here during your sabbatical?
I think I'd develop a nervous tic. Plus we don't want everyone to become productive, now do we?
Maybe you've already thought of this, and if not it might be too late to set it up, but can you go to any workshops at these kinds of places?
Not THAT productive.
(In all seriousness, I am ridiculously low-energy right now, and just sort of want to stick around the house and semi-do kid stuff.)
What if the workshop was in Montana, and you were allowed to drive there and back with the kids?
I know it wasn't a sabbatical, but Newton came up with his theory of non-relativistic gravitation while home from Cambridge due to an outbreak of the plague. Just try to do something of about that caliber.
When life hands you Ebola, make parabolas?
24. Yeah, but if he'd been in the university at the time he might have come up with general relativity.
What's the worst that happens if you just do nothing but surf the Internet and drink martinis for a year? You have tenure, right? They can't fire you. Sure, you might lose some self-respect, but that's overrated.
I mean you can literally be funemployed. Think of it as an once in a lifetime preview opportunity to figure out how to enjoy your retirement. Does the world really need any more math, anyway?
The worst case scenario is that it slightly hurts my chances for full professorship, it slightly more hurts my chances for another sabbatical seven years from now, it hurts my pride and guilt and desire for approval, and the baby comes out pickled.
Once in a lifetime? You mean once every seven years. Don't forget about summer vacations.
break up a project into bite-sized chunks and focus on masticating one of those at a time during tightly time-bounded periods
This sounds great but I have no idea how to break up a math research project into bite-sized chunks, or assign a realistic time frame to a chunk. Step 1: Prove thing. Step 2: Write paper. If Step 1 is difficult, what can anybody do?
I mean, if Step 1 is impossibly hard then no amount of chunking into lemmas will get it done. The impossibility just ends up in one or more sub-steps, by the pigeonhole principle.