I have to grade. It's a necessary part of my job. I also have to grade in a way that provides feedback to my students. I can't just slap a number or letter on an assignment and move on. I also have to get the assignment back in a timely manner. It's one of the things my students evaluate me on, and it's important that they know how they're doing in the class. Grading, however, constantly derails my program. I lug up the papers or tests and spend a few days focusing almost exclusively on getting the grading done. Meanwhile, other stuff piles up. My Inbox gets full. My desk gets cluttered. Other things don't get done. Then, it takes me a couple of days to recover and set things in order after the grading is finished because I didn't "maintain" very well during the time I was grading. I also notice I am less productive when I have papers to grade even when I'm not actually grading. It's just hard to focus on anything else besides the stack of papers.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this, but I need to do something, since grading is a necessary and important part of my job. Next semester, I'll be teaching more classes, so there will be more papers to grade. That's why it's important that I figure this out sooner rather than later.