I love February. It is my birthday month, and it is the month when it gets visibly lighter early in the morning. It is so nice to wake up to a not-completely-dark sky, isn’t it? It makes me happy.
Below, my highlights for February.
Researching
I made some progress on the idea for the grant proposal that I mentioned last month. First, I made a short presentation about my idea to colleagues that have extensive experience of securing funding from this organisation, as part of an event organised by our university’s research office. It was really, really helpful to do this presentation, because I got a lot of practical advice and suggestions, as well as encouragement. Then, I joined a writing session, where we worked through the various sections of the application form. So, now, I have a rough idea of what goes where and how it all hangs together. Thought, I still have a lot of work to do on the details. The old Pareto rule at play!
Something else noteworthy, as far as research is concerned, was a meeting with two researchers to plan the next stage of data collection for our ongoing project on use of social media in business to business organisations.
Writing
I continued to write daily, though for short sessions, only. So, I did not manage to ‘ship’ much this month: the only thing that I submitted was a conference paper.
However, I did make large strides on a journal paper. I drafted several sections, and I delivered a research seminar about it, at Coventry University (in which I may have got carried away with images – look at the size of that file. Oops). So, I am expecting this paper to be out of the door in the next week or so.
Teaching
I am halfway through teaching the ‘Customer Relationship Marketing’ and ‘International Marketing’ modules, and all continues to go well.
I also interviewed a potential PhD student, proposing to research issues around mobile marketing.
Learning
Working on the grant application has been a major learning opportunity, not just about the process itself, but also about the University (how it works, who does what, …).
Another good learning opportunity was co-organising a mini-symposium for our (i.e., marketing) PhD students. It was a good way to meet some of the students and to see the range of work being done in the group.
Ana Canhoto 
The best people were born in February!! 😉
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Hi Ana! I just love reading your round-ups. I always feel like it might be such a great feeling to see the month like that, in a nutshell. I am thinking about following your example and starting a ‘monthly summary’ on my own blog. Have a feeling it would be helpful to put things into place. Any advice? 🙂
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Thank you, Silvia. It can go either way: it can be a great pat on the back, but it can also be the realisation that I wasted a lot of time… which is why I do these religiously 😉 So, these work both ways: as a way to reflect, and as a motivation on those days when I am struggling to focus.
I am so happy to hear that you are doing the same. My first advice is to choose whatever categories are most relevant for you. For instance, I chose ‘learning’ because I wanted to force myself to keep doing so. The second advice is to keep a daily (or almost daily) research journal. I started one during my PhD, where I note what I am doing, what I am struggling with and so on. This way, when it comes to do the monthly report, I just need to read through what I wrote during that month. At the end of the month, I also look ahead to what I need or want to achieve in the following month, identify key hurdles (e.g., marking season, or school holidays for my children), and try to plan around those.
Good luck – can’t wait to read your monthly reports.
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Thank you! Great advice. I have been keeping a journal on and off, but that’s a great reason to keep it going. 😊
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