I had been told that keeping a journal during sabbatical leave can be helpful, and some of my colleagues have great examples. However, I found that my notes are much more task oriented:
1/7/2015 – COINS submitted, begin list of Deans/Directors, IRB approval – revised recruitment and consent forms, email cleanup begins
…
1/30/2015 – Conducted 2 interviews, gathered 16 organizational charts
So until now I haven’t felt like writing anything in a journal format. However, now I am in the middle of interviews and mostly done with paperwork, I am feeling a bit more cerebral. For example, I have 8 interviews completed and 17 more scheduled (so far). That is 25 Deans or Directors and almost 12.5 hours of recording. Thank goodness for transcription help! But I have also gathered a great deal of organizational charts and strategic plans.
So here I am in “ingest mode” and it seems overwhelming, but I have 5 months left. So I am going to take a deep breath and press on, knowing that I have more work to do but also a good deal more time to do it.