My iPhone failed to wake me up this morning. I keep my phone on the “do not disturb” mode most of the time, and I wonder if that is why the alarm failed to go off. It was 7:00 when I finally got up, one hour later than I wanted to wake. So I didn’t get my morning run today; perhaps I’ll run tomorrow instead.

I picked up EJT and Addison from preschool today and brought them home to the babysitter. Next week I’ll watch both of them each afternoon. I’m looking forward to it–I think we’ll all have fun together.

I had a productive meeting with my graduate advisee this afternoon, then took my family out for frozen yogurt. In a few minutes I’ll work on my MAPACA manuscript for about an hour or so.

I had a thought today during church. Writers don’t wake up one day and start writing. They wake up every day and start writing. A writer doesn’t become successful when he sells one thousand books. He becomes successful when he writes one thousand days in a row. I want to be a successful writer.

It’s still difficult for me to manage my time so that I can write. If I decided I did not want to produce manuscripts, I could accomplish so much more. I could nap and wash dishes and play with the boys without the guilt of not writing. But when I rest and wash and play, I hear my un-composed manuscripts nagging at me from the back of my brain. “When are you going to spend time with us?” they whine. “Later,” I lie.

I have an appointment with my neurologist on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I hope I’m sleeping better.

A former student wrote a letter to the university president, who forwarded it to all of the deans, including mine, who forwarded it to me. The student wrote that she was adequately prepared for post-college life due to her coursework, and mentioned my classes specifically. She said a friend of hers told her to take my class, saying “It will change your life.”

My plan worked well. I worked on my MAPACA manuscript last night for about forty-five minutes, read a little How to Build an Atomic Bomb, and went to bed. I woke this morning at 6:15, ate breakfast, and ran 2.15 miles. I’m going to try to do the same tonight and tomorrow morning.

I took EJT to school, then postponed my office hours so that I could have an early meeting with the athletic department. Then I posted grades, reviewed projects, and sent out some forms to our school’s accrediting body. I also asked for updates from one of my research assistants, and assigned work to another research assistant.

At the end of the day I met with my graduate advisee about his project proposal. We were interrupted by CKT and EJT, who decided to draw on my office white board while we met. After the meeting, the boys and I ate dinner on campus, called Grandma and Grandad, and went home. I put EJT to bed for the first time since he graduated to a “big boy bed.” He went down like a champ.

CKT has been upset because the other kids at school won’t toss him the basketball during recess. I talked with him about how he can still play basketball even if he doesn’t shoot the ball. After all, there are nine players on the court at one time, but only one ball. That means most of the players still play basketball even though they won’t shoot the ball. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

I set my alarm for 5:15 this morning so that I could write for an hour before running for thirty minutes. Instead, I woke at 5:15, went back to sleep, and woke back up at ten-till-seven.

I took EJT to school, then made it to campus in time for my 9:15 Video Production I class. The students are about halfway through their multicamera productions, and overall I’ve been very happy with their work. After class I graded a couple projects, then had lunch with about forty of my colleagues for a semi-annual luncheon with the university president and provost. After that I helped a student prep her upcoming production, held another class session of multicamera productions at 3:25, and met with three students about their independent projects before meeting my family at church.

After church, CKT was remarkably moody. He went to bed crying; I never figured out what was bothering him, aside from just general exhaustion. AMKT put him to bed, and I trust they had a good talk.

I’m trying something new tonight. After posting this entry, I am going to finish up a little bit of unfinished work, then work on the MAPACA project a little. Typically, I try not to work at night on university work and manuscripts, but traditionally the nighttime has been more productive for me than the morning. So I’ll work until 10:00, go to bed at 11:00, and wake tomorrow at 6:00 so that I can run two miles before AMKT and CKT leave the house at 7:30.

This morning I woke around 5:15 and composed a new paragraph for my Hillsong United project. I’m presenting the project at the MAPACA conference next month in Baltimore, and I’m pretty much composing the manuscript one paragraph at a time. The outline and anchor pages are composed, so I pretty much know what each of the paragraphs will cover to the analysis section. So even though I only wrote one paragraph this morning, it’s an accomplishment of sorts.

I also began thinking though the book prospectus in earnest. I reviewed the prospectus expectations from a couple publishers over the weekend, and I realized I had reviewed them incorrectly. Had I reviewed them properly, I could have had the prospectus written a month ago. That’s okay, though. I can still meet my self-imposed end-of-the-year deadline to get the prospectus out.

I accomplished a lot during office hours today, and had a decent class this afternoon. We talked through a few issues and concerns students have been having with their productions. Overall, it was very productive.

I came home around 5:30, ate dinner with AMKT, and then took CKT to church to practice the piano. While we were out, CKT said he wanted to pray for “those sick people in Africa.”

Today was better than the past few days. I ran this morning, and graded a couple of projects. I also had a couple of good class sessions today, and made it home before 6:00 in time to eat dinner and play with my kids before bed.

But I didn’t wake early enough to get much work accomplished on my manuscripts, and I started feeling tired around 3:00.

I’d like to believe my failure to post Daily Accomplishments in the past couple days is a testament to how busy I’ve been. It’s true: I have been busy. But my failure to post speaks more to my exhaustion than to my busy-ness. After the boys went to bed, my body and brain began to crash. I abandoned my evening plans–cleaning, writing, blogging–for sleep.

It is time, I think, to schedule another neurologist appointment. My body is reverting back to its unhealthy sleep habits. I’m still sleeping with a CPAP machine to get me through the night, but I’m also taking gabapentin to keep my restless legs at bay. Further, if I do not exercise in the morning, I have to take a Nuvigil tablet to keep me awake during the afternoon. All told, it takes two medications and a machine to get me the rest I need, and I’m still exhausted at night.

Maybe my sleep issues are not as much neurological as they are environmental or emotional. My house is not very relaxing–there is too much clutter for me to feel at ease. My boys fill the house with consistent noise, and they demand my attention constantly. My professional goals include producing a book prospectus by the end of the year, so I’ve set aside an hour each morning at 5:00 to work on it, forcing me to wake earlier than I am used to. My anxiety probably doesn’t help my rest, either.

I want rest. Solid, healthy rest.

I read Daily Rituals a month ago. It’s a book covering the daily rituals of famous, creative and interesting people. It included the rituals of Buckminster Fuller, a fellow I’d like to learn more about. He believed our bodies get tired after we’ve used them beyond the point where they are efficient. If we could figure out the moment when our bodies are too exhausted for a task, we could conceivably require less rest. Let’s say you get tired after three hours of work. That means your body can handle less than three hours of work. As such, you should stop working after two-and-a-half hours, and rest for a couple hours, instead of working for three hours and needing eight hours of rest per night. Fuller trimmed his required rest time to a few hours a night for a couple years with this method.

Likewise, I’ve read that President Bill Clinton can function on four-to-five hours of sleep. I’m fortunate if I can function all day after ten hours of sleep.

Beyond the topic of sleep, though, the past couple days have been busy. I wrote a couple paragraphs for my upcoming presentation in November, and finally caught up on my weekly teaching goals. This morning I worked on campus for a couple hours, then took CKT to the North Carolina Zoo. We got home at 5:45 and had dinner. Then I took a nap for forty-five minutes.