flowmodoro: a timer variation for deep focus

so, i'm on the record in MANY places as being a big fan of the pomodoro method. but, the technique as written has a few drawbacks:

• 25 minutes can feel VERY short

• sometimes you can and/or want to focus for a longer stretch of time

• sometimes the break is too short!

and as it happens now, in 2022, i ran across this video on ye old social media.

the video is short (2ish minutes) but here's the gist of the flowmodoro technique - you don't count down the time to a break, but you count up the time you're focused.

• so you sit down to work, start a timer running up (like a stopwatch)

• once you lose focus (or notice that you lose focus) you pause the timer and see how long you worked

• divide that total time by five - and that's the length of your break. 

• as you keep going, the focus time (usually) decreases, and then you take a longer break to get back to max capacity

i've been experimenting with it and i really like it! especially for deep focus tasks like writing - it's been helpful to work until i'm done, rather than to stop and start. i've also heard from a few clients with ADHD that this works really well IF you know what it looks and feels like when you're distracted and can catch yourself in it. but if you're looking to shake it up, give flowmodoro a try!

book review: inner workout by taylor elyse morrison

if you’ve been around the thrive phd universe for a minute, you know that i started this whole business because i felt left out of so many conversations and spaces in grad school. my body, my brain, my community - we all needed a LOT of care to get through the dissertation process. in the best cases, people understood that my chronic illness, and my brain that tended toward anxiety, had different needs and they left me space to care for myself. but in the worst cases, my yoga practice was viewed as a luxury, my time in therapy an indulgence, and my boundaries around work one of many signs that i didn’t have what it took to be a “serious academic”.

luckily for me, one of the things that the aforementioned therapy sessions helped with was putting these comments into context, and giving me the permission and skills i needed to do my work, but also live my life and take care of myself. and luckily for a lot of us, the conversation has moved on in the years since i was actively dissertating, and self care has become more openly discussed. but with that increased discussion has also come a whole host of other complications: increased commodification; privileging white, affluent, able-bodied voices; a culture of victim blaming that places the onus making time for and practicing care exclusively on the individual, among others.

but even more luckily for all of us, a new book has come out that made huge strides in creating an actionable, inclusive set of tools for approaching self care in a holistic, multifaceted way. inner workout: strengthening self-care practices for healing body, soul, and mind by taylor elyse morrison is part assessment (you know i love an assessment!), part toolkit, part context for understanding how and why you might have arrived at your specific relationship to self care. taylor is the founder of inner workout, which has created an ecosystem of seminars, meditations, trainings, and tools to help people develop easy, sustainable self care routines, and you can see the breadth and depth of her experience in every page of the book. beyond her impressive CV, i appreciated that taylor wrote this book from the perspective of someone actively caring for themselves, and not doing it perfectly all of the time, or maybe even most of the time. the book is not a gospel from a self care god, speaking to you from high atop the mountain. taylor writes this book as a fellow traveler, maybe a few steps ahead of you on the path, but moving backwards and forwards all the time, as we all are. the difference is refreshing.

the book guides you through the context of self care as a theoretical framework used by many cultures, at many points of history - including so many normally left out of the conversation, like indigenous cultures and religious spaces. and then you take the “take care” assessment. your relationship to self care is measured in terms of five “dimensions”, each with corresponding subdimensions that map elements like relationship to your physical body, and your your connection to community and larger purpose. i love how the assessment is meant to be repeated (taylor recommends seasonally) - it feels like less of a scorecard and more of a self portrait. and because i’m a show and not tell girl, here is the snapshot of my results as of march 2023:

the image has text that says “Your Snapshot: here’s a visualization of how you’re currently relating to self-care. the size of the circle is relative to your positive relationship with that dimension.” there are five circles of various sizes and colors, listed here in descending order of size: bliss, mental and emotional, wisdom, energetic, physical.

the book continues to detail each dimension and sub dimension, with personal stories, exercises to deepen your understanding, playlist suggestions, and more. you can read it straight through (like me, highlighting like every single page) or flip through it as you need.

after taking my assessment and reading the book, i felt inspired to engage with my physical dimension more frequently. not surprisingly to anyone who knows me, and probably relatable for scholars everywhere, i spend a LOT of time in my head, and the relative disconnection i feel to my physical body is a something that i am continually working on (and probably always will be!) the book felt like a compassionate way into that relationship, and not like another thing to add to my already long list of things to do. i’m not instantly more embodied, but i can say that i have been inviting myself back into my body more often in the last week, and that’s not nothing!!

this book is definitely for you if you’re looking for some support for your self care that feels personalized, inclusive, and written with overlapping systems of inequality and privilege as the foundation, not a footnote. if you’re looking for a book about self care written by a Black woman who lives her ambition and values her care, this book is definitely for you. i read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts, and do a lot of work with self care every day so take it from me that this feels different: more actionable, more approachable, more inclusive, and more fun.

(i’m not being paid to write this review - i bought the book with my own money and wrote this of my own free will - it was just a really good book that i felt like you should know about!!)

what if there was no virtuous way to work?

"I got it done, and it went really well, but I was definitely working up until the last minute"

"I hate that I was rushing, but I guess I did finish it!"

"Yeah, this went really well, but next time, I want to be done at least a week before."

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating that everyone stop pushing before deadlines, or that there's anything noble about staying up all night! What I'm saying is:

There is no one way of working that is inherently "good" or "correct" or "desirable", just as there is no "bad" way of working. There's just working, and what it does for you, and your life.

So for years and years, I have felt guilty that I write mostly on deadlines. I will have a course, or a blog post, or something that's due, and I will get it done in time, but if I have three weeks to write it, I will start it ....closer to the deadline, and not the instant it is on my to do list.  So I'll get it done, and it will go well, and I'll like it, and people will like it, and I can't be 100% happy with that, just because I didn't "spread it out". 

Every accomplishment came with a "but next time" clause: this was great, but next time I'll start earlier; this worked well and I'm proud, but also I wish I wasn't like this. 

And as I got to know myself and my work habits better, I realized that a lot of my guilt and shame around some of my working habits were because I believed that I was getting the results, but I wasn't doing it the right way, or the good way. Good people start their work early! Good students study ahead of time and never cram! The right way to work is a little bit every day and have lots of time before the deadline! So no matter what the data said, I felt like I could always do better because I wasn't doing it the right way. 

Now, sometimes, I cut it *very* close to the deadline. And it makes me stress, and I lose sleep, and I crash afterwards, and I'm a total crank to everyone around me. And that is a very good reason to try and start a little earlier! But "because good people always finish ahead of time" is a less good reason that invites a lot more guilt into my life. 

And as I work with my own brain, and neurodiverse clients, and just the people of the world, I realize that we have a lot of shame around not doing things the "right way". So someone could be working really well, and really efficiently, prepping the two hours before a class meets, but they'll feel bad about it (despite the evidence!) because they're rushing. Or they'll take all the distractions out of a room because that's what "focus" feels like, when in fact they get the best work and thinking done while old episodes of The Great British Bake Off play in the background. Sometimes, the "good way" just doesn't work for you, and you carry this idea that even though your way is working in all the ways that count, it still isn't right. 

So, I've gotten better at asking myself a few questions to get at the heart of what I want to change, and more importantly, why I want to change them. These questions can help you, too, as you do monthly reflections, or end of semester reflections, or any other kind of reflection you might want to do <3 As always, take what's useful and leave the rest! 

• What really worked about this (process, project, outcome)?

• What didn't work as well?

• How do you know it didn't work as well? What are you noticing, measuring, or noting?

• What data do you have that points in a different direction, that things are working well?

• What do you think would be a different or alternate way of attempting this, or a similar, task?

• What do you think the advantages of the alternate way would be?

• Why do you think those are advantages?

• How will you know if the new way is doing what you want it to?

the dance between accountability and compassion

Sometimes, I get in my own head. Life happens to me, like it happens to all of us. I had a bit of a slow start to this year. And all I could think about was how I didn't have the time for any of the hard stuff because it was the new year and I had to start working on my new year goals. If I didn't get a good start in January, I'd be off all year and if I didn't hold myself accountable, no one else was going to. I was so worried that if I took care of myself and showed myself some compassion for what were pretty understandable feelings, I would fall into a pattern of only ever excusing myself out of important things. I wouldn't do anything because I cut myself too much slack.

Many of my clients struggle with this same thing, and in fact, it could be part of the human condition:

"If I take the day off to heal from being sick, what if I never get back to work?"

"If I let myself extend this deadline, what will stop me from extending all my other deadlines until deadlines have no meaning to me?"

"If I don't hold myself to my high standard all the time, I will permanently lower my standards and that will be a disaster."

One of my favorite Instagram Follows - Lisa Olivera - is a therapist and last week, she posted a bunch of really interesting prompts showing how self-compassion and accountability can, in her words, dance together. As she says, "Offering ourselves compassion while also being willing to take care of ourselves through being accountable to our well-being and our needs is a really nourishing way of reparenting, caring for, and also getting shit done." Here are some of my favorite examples she points to:

Self-compassion: It makes so much sense why this is so challenging for me.

Accountability: What next step feels in my reach to make it a little bit easier in this moment?

Self-compassion: It's okay to need a break sometimes. It's okay to need rest and time off/time out.

Accountability: When I feel ready, what would feel supportive in getting started again?

Self-compassion: It's understandable that I forget to use my self-soothing (Katy note: and also work, productivity, and planning!) tools at times.

Accountability: Is there anything that would make them more accessible to me when I need them?

We can realize that we're human, and offer ourselves some understanding and compassion for that AND also be looking for ways to support ourselves. We can have off days and not beat ourselves up for that AND also look at what caused those days and what might feel more supportive next time. We can take a break when we need it AND commit to checking in with ourselves about when we're ready to work again. 

The point is that the shame and the guilt and the pain and the fear that we add to the situation doesn't usually support us. It adds sticky feelings to the hard stuff we're already going through. What if we tried to be accountable to our goals, our values, ourselves AND understood that we wil necessarily do that in a human way because we are humans?

We've all got this - not in spite of the fact that we're human, but because of it. 

commitments over deadlines: getting out of the "i'll just do it next week" guilt trap

"Self imposed deadlines never work because I know myself and I am a liar!" is something a client said to me today (after having seen it on Twitter or Tumblr or something) and I laughed and cried because:

wow, the truth of that

and 

wow, the truth of that.

This is not a post asking you to abandon deadlines, self imposed or otherwise. You need them sometimes. They most importantly put temporal boundaries on projects - and if you're someone who likes to tinker in the sandbox until the last second before you have to leave the park, this is an important step. With so many things, there is no clear or obvious done point - so we have to create one with a deadline. 

But! If you are stuck in a cycle of:

• feel overwhelmed about tasks on your plate now and tasks that are coming

• wildly guess at a deadline that you (or your anxiety self) feels like is reasonable, or at the least, will make you feel like a human being who does things and not a sentient trash pile who happens to be in grad school

• work at that deadline for a minute

• realize that for whatever reason it isn't happening

• give up

• or set new, farther deadline - say, next Friday!

• repeat

then it might be time to try something new. Because if you set a bunch of deadlines, and then don't hit them, and then keep setting deadlines, eventually you reinforce the idea to yourself that time boundaries don't matter unless someone else gets really mad at you for missing them, or unless you have severe consequences for missing it. And that's a tough way to live.

So instead, try something new: try aiming for a commitment like:

• working for one hour every week day on this project

• one pom of freewriting when you get to your desk for the day

• picking three things from your to do list and working on any of those before you start something else

• accountability posts four out of five days next week (*wink*)

If putting more and more pressure to get to done isn't work, try adding some focus on the process. If you work for an hour on a project every day, it might not be done on Friday, but it will be some place new. If you commit to doing one of your scary three things first, you might just get the momentum to keep going. But focusing on what you'll do regularly, rather than the amount of time you have left to do something, you build the habits that make the deadlines happen. A deadline of this Friday doesn't magically build you a writing practice - it just puts some pressure on. So try the practice first, and then add the pressure.

get specific: figuring out what you need is so important

have you ever been completely drowning (metaphorically speaking), and someone comes in and asks “what do you need?”

did you want to punch that person in the face, or did it send you even deeper into the spiral?

i’ve been known to yell “IF I KNEW WHAT I NEEDED I’D GET IT FOR MYSELF” as i go back to laying on the floor (a slight exaggeration but only slight lol) because that question is really overwhelming. if i knew what i needed, i’d have more ideas about how to get it. i’d have more ideas about where to look. i’d have more ideas about what to ask for.

so, here are my patented steps for figuring out what support i need:

1. notice that i am actually needing support, or having a hard time, or struggling with something (this can be harder than it looks!)
   

2. take care of my nervous system - very hard for me to make a plan when my brain is at an 11!
   

3. dial in to what feels hard - “everything is hard” is a place to start, but “it’s hard to figure out when to stop reading and start writing” or “it’s hard to know what a first draft looks like because i’ve never seen one” or “it’s hard to know if my work is any good because all i have is my supervisor’s opinion and that’s not a super stable foundation for making career decisions” are all a little bit more specific. sometimes it helps to journal until you get underneath the initial "everything is hard response”.
   

4. see if there’s somewhere or something or someone that can help! maybe you ask your supervisor when they start writing during data collection, or at what point they start drafting during a research phase. maybe you ask to see a colleague’s first draft. maybe you show your work to more people in more places to get a wider sense of the reception. but specific problems are much easier to support than vague ones.

i use these steps on a daily basis. i loop back to the beginning all the time - because as i grow and change, i need support with different things. it has helped to decide that needing support isn’t a problem. i’m not wrong or broken because i need help sometimes, or even a lot of the time. it’s just part of learning to do new things, and learning to do new things is a huge part of human and phd life.

this is also part of being part of a community that values the wisdom and brilliance of others. this is the kind of community i cultivate in my spaces, the kind i created in my classrooms, and the kind i see popping up (in pockets) in scholars all the time. asking one another for support is a way of saying “i see your smartness, and i’d be honored if you shared a little bit with me, and promise to return the favor if i could ever do the same.”

grumping it out: what to do when you just have to grump

last night, as i was laying on the couch, watching STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and wondering if three cookies would fill the emotional need that two cookies had not, i said to my husband:

”everyone i know is hitting a wall right now. i can’t tell if that makes me feel better or worse.”

i’ve had so many conversations - in my community, with one-on-one sessions, with friends, with colleagues - about how tough the start of the year has been, and how we expected it to be smoother, and how we were all throwing temper tantrums about it.

i myself just…..didn’t write tweets or schedule posts for instagram last week. i kept having it on my list for the day, and then i played Stardew Valley and read a lot of books and articles about ADHD and the emotional impacts of executive dysfunction and i drank a lot of tea and i showed up for all my clients but i still didn’t write the tweets.

the coach voice in my brain keeps trying to step in and suggest other activities to try - “what if you actually planned your vegetable garden for next year rather than farming a digital garden full of a made up fruit called Qi Berries?” or “what if you worked on your knitting while you listened to one of these books on audio rather than scrolling the web endlessly?” or “what if you made it a really delicious bath with candles and epsom salts and a good meditation session instead of watching all of FIREFLY LANE?” and the louder, clearer part of me kept coming back with:

NO. Don’t want to. Don’t feel like it. Stop suggesting things! I will just play more Stardew Valley to SPITE YOU.

and so i have been, as one of my favorite instagram follows Yumi Sakugawa would put it, grumping it out. rather than trying to force myself to “be productive” or “rest better” or “be more positive about it all” i am being GRUMPY about it. i’m eating some cookies. i’m watching my favorite shows. i’m making dates with friends over zoom so that we can be grumpy together. i’m sleeping a little bit more and actually really leaning into some yoga, which is surprising but i’m going with it.

and while i wish i could share that this has been really creatively useful time for me, and that i expect i’ll be back soon with new courses and workbooks and a renewed understanding of rest, i don’t know that any of that is true.

what i do know is true is that everyone - me, you, everyone - has been going through a series of interlocking and concurrent traumas in the past year. and there is grief that is building up. and anger, and frustration, and sadness, and fear, and worry are maybe building up for you, too.

grumping it out won’t make substantial change in climate policy and it won’t shift the balance of power in more equitable ways. it won’t end lockdowns and it won’t fix the job market and it will not undo the fact that there will always be an unequal distribution of pain, violence, and resources.

grumping it out is an acknowledgement that there is a limit to the amount of work we can do, consoling and cajoling ourselves to keep going, when things are hard. grumping it out is a way to deal with the unfairness of it, the pain of it, the grief of it - to feel it, to give it attention, and start to unpack it a little; so many of us have been shoving these situations to the side to focus on publications and work and family, and sometimes it’s going to bubble up.

i do feel the grump starting to lift a little bit - i only needed one bribe of truly disgusting but also oddly satisfying dunkin donuts mocha latte cereal to make it to my desk today! i can focus a little longer, wake up a little easier, find a little more spark in it all. i’m not all the way back, but some of the way is much better, and grumping it out got me there. may you find a little bit of solace and comfort as you grump it out, and move into the next phase of whatever this year wants to be.

habits as a practice: how to ease up on some all or nothing thinking

this year, a little bit on a whim, i decided to commit to morning pages - three pages of handwritten text in a notebook before (in theory) i start my day. i was looking for a practice that was easy, portable, and helped me bring a little bit of mindfulness into my days. so i got my notebook and today, i have fourteen little entries.

to be honest, it still feels really high stakes - like one cold or bad morning could knock me off my game and i would lose the habit and my goal for the year all at once! unlike the habit of say - brushing my teeth - this one definitely feels fragile and like it needs a lot of attention to get it right. it feels automatic to brush my teeth - it does NOT feel automatic to do my morning pages right now.

but, i know that there’s a life cycle of habits. there are some - like teeth brushing, that feel rock solid, but that that only comes after some time and practice. those are grown up habits - you trust them to be there, even if, you know, you fall asleep on the couch and stagger upstairs and forget to brush one day.

but then there are new habits - fledglings! - they’re just out of the nest and they need a lot of time and care until they feel like they can stand on their own. and when i work with clients, we often talk about adding in some purposeful care around these fledgling habits until you trust them to fly on their own a little bit more.

it’s really easy to just add habits to the list of things to do in a day - want to be more mindful? add a meditation habit! want to exercise more? add a morning workout habit! before long, your whole day can be just a list of habits, an endless to do list before the actual to do’s of your work day.

i encourage you, instead, to think about your habits like a practice - some are solid, some are strengthening, and some you can retire for the moment. the goal isn’t total completion every day of the whole list - the goal is to use the tools you need, when you need them, and to learn how to best work it in to your day and your life.

the difference can sound miniscule, but for me, it’s less about “did I do my morning pages, yes or no” and more about “what can i do to make my morning pages feel intentional so that i get the full benefits of that as a practice in a more holistic way?” my life will go on if i miss day 16, or 245, or the entire month of july - but every time i come back to my notebook to write down my thoughts and empty out my brain, that habit grows up just a little bit.

here is a habit inventory sheet i use with clients to help them see which habits are needing what kind of care - may it be useful to you this week as you dig into what things you’re growing in your own routines!

surveys for students: using google forms to get to know your classroom

Like any good humanist, I want as much information as I can get in any situation. (I imagine a scientist, or anyone, really, has similar desires.) And when I'm teaching, information about my students becomes invaluable as the class grows and shifts from planning to execution. 

One of the most powerful tools for gathering this information is the online, anonymous survey. Below, I'll show three examples of how I've used Google Forms to create and administer these surveys at different points in a course. But first, why use them at all?

Surveys give students a private channel of communication

Throughout my teaching career, I often wanted to know how my students were doing individually, but also a collective group. And as anyone who has asked a class of undergraduates "how the reading went," one does not always get accurate, or honest, information when students are asked to be vulnerable in front of one another. I started using online surveys as a way to collect information that I'm interested in, and was pleasantly surprised when students were much more open and honest when they could answer privately, sometimes anonymously, and on their own time. 

Get to know your students before the course begins

This is my pre course survey. I send it out (slightly modified for the type of course) before each class I teach, either as an assistant or instructor of record, as soon as is reasonable. This survey (as part of a "welcome to the class" on-boarding email) is the first signal I send to students that I value their voices and diversity in the class, and aim to be aware and inclusive of their strengths and backgrounds as I teach. I did configure this form to be associated with an email, but appreciate that I can both see individual responses and the answers in aggregate. 

For example, the range of responses I get for the "what should I know about you as a student?" question range from preferences about class activities to concerns about preparation. 

After getting responses like these, I made sure to include extra resources on film materials on the course website, as well as providing many ways for students to participate.

After getting responses like these, I made sure to include extra resources on film materials on the course website, as well as providing many ways for students to participate. 

Most of the questions are pretty standard, but I am consistently surprised by the technology answers my students provide. I am guilty, as many of my digital humanities/studies colleagues are, of assuming access to technology. But this particular responses gave me pause, as I realized that a significant group of my students did not have smart phones, and thus my assumption that students would see an email blast before class with an announcement was in error. I made a special effort that semester to communicate information on the course site and over email with as much lead time as possible. 

The most unexpected benefit of the pre-course survey is reduced nerves! I know quite a bit about my students before I ever step in front of them, which helps me feel more confident and prepared, and also gets me excited to work with them over the course of the semester. Usually, this is just the boost I need to get pumped about being in front of students again. 

Muddiest Point gives you class by class data

'Muddiest Point' is a technique I was first introduced to in a STEM pedagogy seminar. This is a quick feedback tool, where students at the end of each course meeting are required to submit, anonymously, what they feel the most unclear point of the lecture or course session was. This is incredibly helpful in large lecture courses where it can be hard to gauge understanding, but gives students in classes of all sizes a way to express comprehension challenges without needing to do so publicly. If more than a handful of students express discomfort with a certain idea, that's a great sign that you might want to add an extra problem solution to the course website, or quickly review the idea next lecture.

In my own courses, I often handed out index cards at the end of each course, and students got in the habit of filling one out before leaving. But putting a durable link on the course website can be even more effective (and you don't have to carry around/buy paper!) Here's an example of how that form would look. 

I also found that it was a great, anonymous way for students to talk back to me about how the course was going. Because their names aren't attached to the feedback, students would express all kinds of ideas to me - things they liked, new examples they wanted to share but didn't get to, explanations for their low energy, or candid feedback about how they were enjoying the course. Unlike student intake surveys, I do take these with a grain of salt, but students consistently mention in my end-of-term feedback that they enjoyed this structured, private way of communicating with me. 

Check in with your students at the midpoint of the course

Midterm Student Feedback sessions were a service I performed for instructors on behalf of CRLT where I would interview instructors about how they felt a course was going, observe a section of their teaching, and facilitate an anonymous feedback session with their students. These were incredibly valuable conversations, allowing students to give feedback while time remained for the instructor to incorporate their feedback, and giving instructors a chance to open conversations and adapt courses. 

But, even if you don't have access to a full, facilitated MSF session, you can still solicit feedback from your students at the midpoint of the course. Here's an example of a form I've distributed to students. And here are a few responses to an actual MSF form I distributed (this was after a facilitated session that was done on my behalf, and these two students chose to respond further to the form or were absent - I didn't have attendance data for that course session, so I can't say for sure, which of course protects my students.)

Many students come to my courses expecting to see 'important' 'artistic' films and instead watch Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, but I won't apologize for showing them that the same concepts that animate their high theory readings function in documentaries aimed at teen girls. 

Many students come to my courses expecting to see 'important' 'artistic' films and instead watch Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, but I won't apologize for showing them that the same concepts that animate their high theory readings function in documentaries aimed at teen girls.

After receiving this feedback (along with the full report), I did continue doing the muddiest point exercise after every class (I hadn't been sure, with this group in particular, that it was helpful) but chose not to change my screenings. I also appreciated the answers that students gave about what they can do to improve their experience of the course. Students often know that their own investment in reading and attendance impacts their learning, but it was reassuring to know that they viewed themselves as co-creators of their learning experience. 

MSFs give me a chance to adjust my teaching - every course is different, every student is different, and making changes halfway through can really re-energize a course that's straying off course, or help to shore up effective structures even more. 

But okay, what do I do with all this data?

My first, and most important, piece of advice, is to honor what students share with you. Are many students saying in their muddiest point answers that they hate a certain assignment? Add a follow-up question to figure out why, and maybe address their concerns. Do all of your students have missing background preparation for the course? Build regular units of background knowledge into your classes, or provide extra resources on the course site. 

But, as with so many pedagogy tools, the tool becomes much more effective when it gains the students' trust. After each survey, I referenced the results in class, and gave my students concrete actions that I was taking to address the ideas and concerns they volunteered. I made an effort to address muddiest point concerns, and explicitly referenced those answers in class. But keeping these channels of communication open, especially with these surveys, makes me a more responsive instructor, and empowers my students to participate in creating the learning environment with me, and with their peers. 

using your brain for both: when you have to do the anxiety (or your brain weather of choice!) and work in the same brain

On one of my more dramatic days, I complained to my therapist that I hated that I had to have anxiety happening in the same brain where my work was expected to go on. 

"It seems like too much to process at once! How dare I have to battle my anxiety WHILE ALSO creating new knowledge!!!!!" 

The reality, she gently pointed out, is that everyone has to do many things in their brain at once. Anxiety thought patterns, and the bodily responses that go along with them, run in parallel with all kinds of work, play, rest, and creation. That's just the way it works. Annoying, but true I guess.

But in my defense, it can feel overwhelming when your primary task for the day is to input a bunch of information, or draw connections between information sources, or translate your thoughts into language and your anxiety is kicked up at the same time. Other tasks (washing the dishes! tiling a back splash! walking the dog!) have a more concrete presence in the world for you to focus on and thus, you have several ways to know if you're doing it well. When you're reading, writing, or crafting an argument, you just have your thoughts. And when your thoughts are also of an anxious flavor, it can be difficult to pull the tangles apart. 

And when brain weather (hyperfocus! anxiety! depression! ADHD! autism! neurodivergence of all kinds! brain fog! trauma! and all the other kinds of weather out there!) is your norm, and not just an “around the deadline” condition, it’s important to know that you aren’t making it up - the weather impacts you! If I’m having a stormy weather, I can either take an umbrella (take care of the situation!) or stand out in the rain and hope I won’t get wet. Planning works better, and is a good chance to practice self care, and the idea that you can show up and do what you can, when you can.

So, here are a few of the things I do to help that "busy brain" feeling - I can't always make the anxiety stop (although my tool belt also includes: talk therapy, medication, exercise, sleep) but I can make things a little bit more concrete, making it just a tiny bit easier to be mindful. 

• Make your brain weather process more visible. Sometimes, this means doing a word dump where I pull out my journal or a blank word processing document and just write out the contents of my brain. It can be a little bit overwhelming to see the contents of your anxiety thoughts spilled out onto the page, but seeing the thoughts for what they are can help bring them back down to size (they're just thoughts!) and help you combat any misinformation you might be giving yourself.
  

• Make your work thought process a little more visible. Sometimes when my mind is spinning, I make an extra effort to make the work thinking more concrete. I make a mind map, or I start a new document where I write out what I know so far. Taking notes can definitely help keep me focused if I'm reading, or highlighting or underlining. Anything I can do to connect the abstract process I'm working on to a concrete action can help to ground me.
  

• Have some scripts ready. I like to talk back to my anxiety, literally speaking words in my head or out loud, to counteract some of the feeling of spiraling. Here are a list of some of my standard responses to anxious thoughts while I'm writing - please know that I can repeat these MANY times an hour, but acknowledging the anxious thoughts rather than pushing past them, hoping they go away, usually is more effective for me.

  • Thank you for your input, brain.

  • We will decide if the work is quality when it is finished/on the page.

  • I am working at the pace that I can work.

  • Focus is not an objectively measured state - I will measure my work by the tasks I complete, not how easily I felt I completed them.

  • That is an anxious thought.
    

• Add in a little movement. When my anxiety is high, it often can feel like I have a lot of extra energy in my limbs/torso/head, neck, and shoulders. Moving my body can help to disperse that feeling, even if it doesn't shift the anxiety itself. I love to do inversions (downward facing dog, folding in half to touch my toes, or sitting with my legs up the wall) or put on some jams and have a mini dance party. Regular exercise also helps!
  

• Spend some time with my brain/breath. For me, this normally looks like laying flat on my floor and breathing deeply, or meditating. For you, it might look like a taking a screen break and doing 5 deep breaths, or a yoga practice. Tuning into how I feel right now, in this moment, ironically helps me anchor more into that moment, instead of swirling into the future or fixating on the past.

you might never be a morning person: working with, not against, yourself

Depending on your perspective, I am about to drop some terrible news. 

You might never be a morning person. 

[Or insert the habit you've desperately been trying to start for the last five years: running, reading fiction before bed, meditating, writing for an hour before coffee, cleaning for 15 minutes a day...] 

But here's the really good news: there's a big difference between the habit and the intention. Just because you might be struggling to establish a habit DOESN'T mean you won't be able to honor and incorporate that intention into your day. 

When do you give up on a habit?

Clients come to me often with a set of habits or routines that they have decided (normally through careful research!) will revolutionize their lives. They want my help in supporting those habits - and to be clear, great!! Sometimes a new habit is just the lightning bolt you need to get other things in your life in order. Yoga was that way for me in grad school - the more I went to class, the better the rest of my life functioned, and if it was a habit to go to yoga, it became easier to hit the benchmarks in the rest of my life.

But more often than not, if the habit was a good fit for someone, they wouldn't need my help to get it started. My classic example of this is the "morning person" habit - I hear so often that clients want to start getting up earlier, and become morning people. If only they could get up at 5 am (or 8 am, depending on where they're starting from!) they would be productive academic writers and they would workout before dawn and everyone in their household would eat a delicious and nutritious breakfast prepared after 20 minutes of soul-filling meditation. 

But something always stops them. Kids don't get to bed on time, so the alarm rings after three or four hours of sleep, and gets shut off. Inspiration hits at 7 or 8 pm, and writing goes late into the night. A few days of sleeping in after being sick and the sleep cycle is all off. Everything is great when alone, but when you add a partner who does not feel compelled to get up at 5 am, together time at home is cut down to only an hour or two because of the mismatched bedtimes. Being a morning person works and is great, but it just can't be sustained without huge sacrifices.

At a moment like that, you can go one of two ways: decide that the sacrifices are worth it, and keep the habit up in spite of those challenges. Or you do what I suggest next: stop looking at the habit as the cure-all, and look at the intention. 

Break your habit into the intention parts

Habits are powerful; they take the choice out of activities that we know will serve us in the long run. Instead of deciding twice a day whether it is worth it to brush your teeth, if there's enough of a reason to brush your teeth, you just do it. Those two minutes, twice a day, are long term investments in your dental and overall health and you don't have to waste brain energy on making that investment - it just happens. 

But if you're struggling to make a habit stick, sometimes the distress of stopping and starting that habit (and the guilt and shame spiral that can come with that) is enough to make the whole process unpleasant and unhelpful. So instead of forcing yourself to "be a morning person", or whatever the habit is, be clear about what the intention of that habit is. 

For example, if you really, really want to be a morning person, is it that you:

• Want some time alone before others wake up to center yourself before taking on the day?

• Want writing time that is unlikely to be scheduled over or come into conflict with other duties?

• A regular workout time in order to start the day? 

• Time to meditate or journal? 

• Regular nutritious breakfasts? 

It might be that you want all of those things - but I would encourage you to narrow your list down to the one or two most important things that you want to call in or start. 

Maybe you really want time to center yourself before you start the day, but don't have time for a full 45 minute journaling routine in the morning, no matter how hard you try. Why not shift the bulk of that journaling to the end of your work day, and then only do five or ten minutes in the morning? Still time to center, but broken up and much easier to squeeze in to a hectic morning routine.

Struggling to find a time to make working out a consistent part of your schedule? Maybe you broaden what you mean by start of the day! If you can't get to it before dawn, maybe you get to it before the start of your writing day - you tackle a few hours of chores/appointments/administrative things, and then make a lunchtime yoga class, or go for a 10:30 am run before you sit down to write. 

But breaking the habit down into the intended effects, and focusing on how to make THOSE work, can be a total game-changer. Despite what others may tell you, not every habit or routine works for every person, and even if it worked for you before, it might not work now! But by identifying the intention behind the habit you're working so hard to start, you can open up a few pathways to succeeding, rather than pinning everything on an all or nothing habit. 

You can always start to stack your habits - get your 10 minutes of meditation in every morning, and once that feels stable, add breakfast! Put a workout afterwards! Add five minutes of planning and schedule maintenance! But always remember that it isn't the routine that's the miracle - it's the commitment that you show every time you show up and put the work in. Commitment isn't time bound - only habits are. If you're committed to the change, and the habit is standing in the way, let the habit go and focus on making the most of your commitment to change.

schedule blocks: how to use your schedule to have the kind of day you want or need to have

I am a big, big fan of protecting time in your schedule. I live and die by my Google calendar, because I can always access it, but on that calendar, you'll find more than appointments.

There are two kinds of scheduling - appointment and defensive. Appointment scheduling is pretty self-explanatory - you have somewhere to be at a certain time, and so you put it in your calendar! These are the kinds of things that people usually use their calendar/schedule/planner for, and of course, it's useful! It gets you to where you need to be when you need to be there!

But defensive scheduling is a little different. It's about protecting time, rather than filling it up. You put something on your calendar so you WON'T give that time away to someone/something else. You claim your time before someone else does.

To help clarify the idea a little, here are a few different kinds of scheduling blocks you can add to your week!

Morning routine block. I just don't feel centered and ready to start the day if I don't: 1) have a cup of a warm beverage 2) do a little stretching 3) have breakfast 4) do my morning pages. So I've started blocking time off in the mornings to do just that. It also helped me be realistic about how long I need to get going in the morning, and, following that, how early I need to get up, and then, when I need to go to bed for that to be reasonable.

Sleep block. Oh, to be 18 and able to swing between four and ten hours of sleep without any real ill effects! Alas, that's no longer my reality and after months of denying it, I've accepted the fact that the quality of my sleep often directly impacts the quality of my work for the next day. Putting a block that says "bedtime" or "night routine" or "phones off" has really helped me clean up my sleep hygiene and get better rest. Seeing it my calendar makes it so much more concrete - added bonus for the phone reminder I can set!

Movement block. I am a very good exerciser....as long as I don't have to decide when and where to work out. When faced with the option of working out or staying at my desk and working more, I almost always pick work. So I started scheduling in my workouts into my calendar - they correlate to fitness classes, or challenges with some online accountability. I'm just better about working out if it's in the calendar and I know that other people are aware of my commitment. You can also experiment with a quicker session of walking or stretching in the afternoons or mornings to break up big writing sessions!

Transition or buffer blocks. When I was teaching, I dreaded finishing class and then feeling like I had to turn around in 15 minutes and start writing my dissertation. The switch from one headspace to another was brutal, and so I often just didn't write. Until I realized that I could schedule in some transition time - a half hour or an hour to get something to eat, walk around outside, check my email, get my notes out, settle into a new task. I now use these all the time - between client calls, when I'm trying to switch from admin work to writing, when I need a little space after therapy or time with a friend. If you build in time to transition, you can stop feeling guilty about needing to take it!

End of day routine blocks. I've written more extensively about this here, but leaving just a little bit of time at the end of the day to wrap my day up has made it easier to leave my work at work, and get started again the next day.

Firefighting blocks. This is my newest and most powerful scheduling friend: setting aside time to deal with all the stuff that comes up during the day. I used to have a really hard time getting to my writing, because invariably something would happen (an email that I needed to handle, an admin problem to work out, someone else dumping work on my plate) that would feel more important and urgent than the writing. I started leaving a few hours in my schedule, every couple of days, to deal with all those things that come up. If nothing came up, then hooray! Free hour to do whatever I want! But I always know I have some time set aside to deal with these things, and I can focus just a little bit more easily on the task at hand.

The power hour block. This is an incredibly powerful idea from Gretchen Rubin: set aside an hour, once a week (or as often as you need it) to work on all the tasks you never seem to get done (or want to do) at other times of the week. Make your dentist appointments, pay your bills, return your library books, deal with your citations - but schedule the time in so that you actually have time to do them. It sounds like the worst hour ever, but in practice, it can feel really good to get some of those tasks that float around in the back of your brain off the list.

As always, know that new schedules and routines take a while to crystallize, and then, just when you think you've nailed down your perfect schedule, and you're really crushing things.....it'll change. It always does. But think of these blocks as tools in your scheduling tool belt - pull them out when you need them, or when you want to get to know them better. I hope that they'll serve you well!

a review of Tend to It: a Holistic Guide to Intentional Productivity by Kate Litterer, PhD

i read a lot of books about productivity - it’s a hazard in my line of work. in most cases, i read through them, looking at the references to see what the author is using as a framework, maybe make a few notes. a few i’ll write up in my community or mention to a client.

it’s been a while since i wanted to buy a book and use it myself, start to finish. Tend to It: A Holistic Guide to Intentional Productivity by Dr. Kate Litterer now sits on my desk, a gentle and powerful tool to help me think about my own practices. it feels like a flexible framework - one that invites me to start from my own experience and build, rather than to take what i know about myself and my work and shove it into a system built for maximum output.

tend to it “reimagines productivity through the lens of slow and intentional living” - an approach that Dr. Litterer has built and shares around the world, through her awesome instagram, blog, and coaching practice. this approach really appeals to me - i have seen firsthand the damage that one-size-fits-all, publish or perish, write no matter what advice does to people who cannot or do not want to meet those bars. i love that this book consciously calls out the roots of productivity culture in white supremacy, ableism, and capitalism, and draws attention to the ways in which we’re all called to work well beyond the limits of our bodies, minds, and boundaries in order to do more, just to keep up.

the book has five main chapters on topics like focusing with intention and setting boundaries, tons of citations and places to do further research, and my favorite part, 21 exercises to do in order to start to apply some of the techniques and tools described. i especially like that the book is flexible enough to support bouncing around, but cohesive enough so that you can work through it step by step as well. the book would be super useful for anyone who is working on a big project, or things you can’t finish in a day or two - so grad students, but also beyond! the book also doesn’t have any specific tools or systems you need to use or buy in order to make the most of it - i love that i don’t have to download any apps or get any new complicated workbooks or planners in order to start working with these tools.

i have a chronic illness, and one of the reasons i started writing and coaching about productivity was because there were so many spaces and voices talking about how to be more efficient, produce more, write more, and so few that were pausing and asking “why" and “do you have the resources to do that sustainably” and “why do you want to do this”. this is the book i needed in my PhD program, and it is a book that serves me well now as a small business owner who still tends towards the overwork, underrest model. i am happy to have a tool and framework to help me move forward with intention, and not just as fast as i can, and i’m so happy it exists so that everyone can benefit from it too!

curiosity as fuel: a March Madness post

i write to deadlines - i always have. i don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, either - sometimes a deadline is just the amount of positive stress to get you through a block, to convince you that something is important, to get you started.

in fact, i am writing this on a deadline (self imposed, but sure) - but i’m also thinking about what else is fueling my writing practice, and what fuels can be sustainable over longer periods of time. because, i have a bold claim:

it isn’t the schedule, or the word count, or the writing habit that makes a writing practice sustainable, at least over the long term. it’s the fuel.

i cannot tell you how many clients come to me upset that they cannot write, or otherwise work on, their project every day. they’re caretakers, or they’re teaching massive loads, or they just don’t have a schedule that opens up space for them in that way. and they are, to a person, convinced that they’ll never be successful because their schedule doesn’t work.

what if we framed it around fuel? your schedule, your routine, your habits - those are all just parts of the car, but they’re going to sit there (or not work as well) without fuel, or without the right kind of fuel.

i think about deadline pressure as jet fuel - it’s powerful stuff! it will move you a long way in a short amount of time. but rockets are not every day vehicles - the wear and tear on that rocket after being shot that high and that fast is substantial. it’s not that it doesn’t have a purpose, or that using it is bad. it’s just not the most sustainable option.

when i talk about curiosity as a fuel, i think about it more like wind or solar power. it requires a fair bit of tech to be set up correctly - just like any writing practice requires a fair amount of learning, skills building, and patience. but when you have the right conditions, and the right projects, renewable energy doesn’t take from you - it doesn’t cost you any extra to make the gears turn, just tapping into what you already have.

(please forgive the simplicity of the analogy i know that renewable energy has all kinds of caveats and complexities!!!!)

what does using curiosity as a fuel look like, in practical terms? it looks like:

• not guilting or shaming yourself to get to your desk, but inviting yourself to it

• finding newness and freshness in your topic, in your reading, in your skills

• letting the changes in your schedule, your time available, your projects serve as creative constraints rather than roadblocks

  • how would it work to write 3 days a week instead of 5?

  • what would it be like to write in 15 minute bursts whenever i could?

  • what would need to change about my workflow to make those changes possible?

• viewing each project as a chance to learn or do something different

  • becoming more efficient in research

  • learning a new subject area

  • trying out a new drafting tool

  • writing in a new voice

  • writing with a collaborator, or by yourself

  • focusing on elements of style

• viewing writing as the solution to the puzzle: “how can i best convey this information to this group of people?”

it’s not that you’ll never ever use deadlines again - we all will. but thinking about your writing as something that grows and changes with you, and can be a source of continuing engagement, of new learning, of growth. it isn’t the schedule or the collaborator or the word count goal, ultimately, that is the magic ingredient (if there was one perfect schedule or system someone would have found it and trademarked it, and sold it back to you at prohibitively expensive prices!!!!) - all of those things are tools that you can learn to use, and learn when they match your circumstances.

no two pieces of writing are ever the same - and you could view that as a frustrating fact of academic life, or as the result of a bottomless well of curiosity, allowing you to grow and change and develop your writing practice into something that is fueled sustainably.

5 things to try with a writing group: a March Madness post

i love writing groups - i love being in them, i love facilitating them, i love teaching people how to facilitate their own. and i also love breathing a little bit of fresh air into existing, or new, groups - especially as the work goes on, and the pandemic rages, and we all are hitting (or well exceeding) our capacity for on camera interaction.

most writing groups are structured around the sharing of works in progress - some specify the kinds of feedback wanted, and have a schedule and guidelines for who will share writing, how much, and when. i’ve written about some ways to think about structuring those activities here - but here are 5 new things to try with your writing group to shake things up a little bit!

1. writing co-working sessions! - sometimes, you just really need the coffee shop vibe. i’ve been really enjoying Gather, a virtual world where you can have a character and walk around to work with people - as a lower stakes, non zoom coworking option. sometimes, it just helps to work with people, and this is a good way to build some accountability around scheduled writing sessions.

2. summarize the main point - you never really know how your writing is landing until someone else summarizes it for you! this is a great activity to do with early drafts that you share - it’s less time intensive than giving line comments, but it’s useful and effective for the writer to see how their argument is landing.

3. interview the writer - an especially good activity for those who need some practice talking about their research, or who are in the early stages of working out an argument, having group members interview the writer (whether they ask questions based on a draft, or not) is great. you can imagine it like a conference presentation, or ask questions about the argument to get further clarification. this is an especially good kind of session to record - great practice for other interviews down the line.

4. make an outline - normally, this is an activity i recommend writers do with their own writing (reverse outlining, in that case!), but it can be really helpful to see how someone else interpreted the structure of your argument, and how the examples link up. it also can take less time than traditional line-specific feedback, so it’s great for early drafts and busy group members.

5. workshop a revision - got a revise and resubmit that has you spinning? really tough feedback from your chair that you need help deciphering? if you trust your writing group, you can bring that piece (and the feedback!) and work together to make a revision plan. this is particularly useful if you are feeling really sensitive about the feedback (who isn’t??) or if you are lost about where to start.

writing groups are so valuable - writing, after all, is taking thoughts that live in our brains and putting it into a form where they can be shared, and so inviting community into that process can only help you check the translation from inside to out.

writing for all seasons: a March Madness post

there is a lot of talk in the academic writing communities about maintaining a publication pipeline. the idea is that at anyone one time, you have multiple projects in various stages of completion so that you never have a lull in your publishing output. if you’re currently working hard on drafting one publication, another one is out for review, and you’re starting to research or collect data for the third. advice definitely varies by field and discipline as to how many manuscripts you should have in each stage, but everyone agrees - everyone needs to have multiple projects working all the time!!!

and it’s not that i disagree - from every professional standpoint, but i find that the idea of a pipeline really stresses the productivity aspect. you have to keep the pipeline full! never let your well of material run dry! always have something on the go so that you always have something coming out!

instead, i prefer to think about it as a garden. there are some plants that are new seeds, freshly tucked into the soil, there are some that need some pruning, or weeding, to thrive, and there are still some others that are ready to be harvested and shared.

now, practically speaking, that isn’t much of a difference, but i do think that the framing matters here. when things are in a pipeline, it’s easy to see yourself as needing to spend equal amounts of time on all the various pieces - six projects, six writing sessions! or to otherwise need to keep things full because you can’t let it run dry!!

but if it’s a garden, you’re doing it to nourish yourself. you’re respecting that some things take time to grow - you may only need to water your seeds once a week, but you have to do some active weeding in your cucumber patch as it’s really growing. you are hopefully growing things to share - but some things can be just for you, too,. sometimes people drop by to work on a plot with you! but it’s a practice - you are attentive to both the process and the product.

so in this schema, here are my categories for a writing garden, to mix, match, and remix for yourself as you see fit!

seed catalog - these are the ideas! you keep a notebook with all the things you could write about - all the projects you could do that need to have some planning to bring them into existence. i recommend that everyone keep some sort of record of these ideas when the happen upon you - you never know when you might need to answer a question like “what are you thinking about working on next?”

planting/seedlings - these are the projects that are in their first phase- you’re figuring out the requirements! how much time will they need? how much research? what kind of support? a very important phase that’s easy to shortcut or underestimate - but the more planning and nurturing you do in this stage, the better! the right match between project and resources is essential for it to thrive.

growing - these projects are on their way! in different fields, this can have different action steps - maybe you’re collecting data! maybe you’re drafting! maybe you’re in an archive - but the idea is that you’re putting in the time - regular waterings! weeding every tuesday! these take the majority of your attention - but each project needs something a little different. and anyone who has started TOO many gardening projects in the the early part of the season, only to be overwhelmed by labor in the late summer knows that it’s important to keep some constraints - not everything can be getting all your attention all the time.

harvest - projects that are getting ready to share. these could be publications you’re getting feedback on, or polishing yourself - it’s sort of like looking at a bushel of tomatoes and deciding whether to make sauce, or a lot of tomato sandwiches. sometimes you do all that work to grow something, only to need to change the outcome. but making sure that you’re putting what you’ve done to work - sharing, cutting up and distributing into other projects, teaching, important lesson for yourself - it all has value.

fallow - sometimes, a project has a fallow time. you could be waiting after submitting to a journal, or blocked by a problem in the data, or waiting on some research. letting a plot lay fallow is a purposeful time of regeneration, even if it doesn’t look like much. having some areas, some ideas, some skills, or some projects that are resting can be really useful - and essential if you want your garden to be sustainable over the long term. you can’t just plant and plant and plant in the soil and expect that everything will grow equally well - you need to give back in terms of nutrients, and rest.

a pipeline implies that there’s a product and that’s the main goal - but a garden is an ecosystem, the way you take care of it matters. the season matters. the amount of time, and light, and water - it all makes a difference. and matching up your resources with your goals is the most surefire way i know to make sure that your writing practice becomes something you can do sustainably, and that is one way to make sure that your garden, so to speak, serves you (and your community!) season after season.

outlines are magic: a March Madness post

has it been a while since you made an outline? that makes sense! this is a typical “learn to write” exercise that can feel rote, or even too simple for a complex academic piece.

but outlines are magic for a few reasons! i strongly recommend them to all my clients, and here are just a few of the reasons why!

outlines are also a really good way to organize information. when you are in the midst of a big research project, it can be really overwhelming to start to say "okay, these things belong in this category of ideas” or “these these ideas relate to this section here." an outline can help give you a place to put those information, those ideas as they assemble themselves into a document so that you don't lose them. it also is a great active note-taking activity for those heavy research seasons!

so rather than a process that looks like:

• read all the things

• flail around

• start to write

• look around for what you read to put it in
  

it can look more like

• read a thing

• take some notes

• put that thing in an outline, if it’s relevant

• read more things

• adjust outline

who cares if you end up moving things around? it’s so much easier to move things around in an outline than it is to restructure a 60 page zero draft. this way, you’re keeping an eye on what you want to produce while you’re researching, which also makes it a little more likely that you won’t over or under research as much, as well.


the other thing that outlines gonna be really, really useful for is giving you a list of tasks to complete. so many of my clients come to me and say, "okay, I've had '[write chapter' on my list to do for the last week and I don't know where to start. I don't know what that means. I look at it on my to do list. I'm so overwhelmed!"

an outline can actually help you naturally break down that big task as you start to draft this chapter into smaller pieces that you can put on into it to do list, and break into more manageable chunks.

if you have the introduction of your chapter outline, and you know that there are four bullet points and there are three bullet sub points underneath each one of those main points, then you can say: "today I want to write up the first bullet point, all three of the sub points today.” this is much easier to wrap your mind around than "write the introduction to this chapter." the outline can help you start to see the smaller steps and then take them, which, as we know, could be a lot less intimidating.

plus, despite what you may have heard, an outline IS writing. it helps you organize information, it brings together your original thinking and your research - of course it counts! an outline can feel less intimidating that starting with a first, or even a zero draft. so experiment with using them to see if they can help you visualize the small steps of your project just a little bit better.

the finish line: how do you manage your time and energy when the end is in sight?

I have had a few seasons of intense productivity before a final deadline - turning in my dissertation, launching courses, etc. You’d think I’d know how to do it! But while I was working, I noticed a lot of things happening in myself, and in my clients, like:

• Apologizing for working long hours

• Feeling guilty about the irregular scheduling

• Shame about falling away from habits and routines that are proven to be helpful

• Physical symptoms - exhaustion, fatigue, mental fuzziness that isn't easily solved by some extra sleep or a cup of coffee

• Fear (rational or not) that it will always be like this, or never end

All of this got me thinking about whether we have to, or should, consider the period of time right before the finish line as a particular type of work. I take it as a fundamental premise of my coaching practice that people need to rest, every day. People deserve self care and they do not earn it through work or productivity. Things that recharge us ultimately serve the work, and therefore we do not need to barter with them. But how does that square with a period of time when you know that you have to work to get things done because you're nearing the finish line? So here are my guidelines on how I decide what constitutes a finish line situation, and tools to survive in them!

1. Two weeks is the limit. In high school, my French teacher said "anyone can do anything for two weeks" as a way to motivate us to study really hard for an AP test, but I've often returned to that as an idea as an adult. I both use it to motivate - it's hard to do something for two weeks, but it doesn't last forever! There's a light at the end of the tunnel! - but also to check myself: am I really sure this will only last for two weeks (or less)? If you're looking at your schedule, and the finish line is more than two weeks off, it might be helpful to think about ramping up, rather than sprinting, as your metaphor. You can be gradually increasing the work time, but not going ALL out, up to the two week mark, but you cannot be pushing yourself to go ALL OUT for more than that without some serious consequences.

2. It's okay that things look different during that finish line time. In a perfect world, I always get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I always have some sort of movement, I make food that makes my body feel good, I take time to meditate, I have creative pursuits, every day has something fun....but the finish line is not the perfect time. It's okay! The more work I create for myself, apologizing to others, feeling guilty, feeling shame about what I didn't finish earlier or more gracefully, the harder the finish line is going to be. Giving yourself permission to do things differently under the circumstances is the key to starting to let go of some guilt.

3. You can enjoy your other work. In true finish line time, I use other tasks as a reward. For example, when I was really working hard on my dissertation over the finish line, teaching or even cleaning the house felt good - doing anything different felt like a relaxing break! So going into those moments and tasks, trying to be present and really enjoy them, without worrying about what I wasn't doing, helped me not forget the rest of my life and tasks, but also get a little space from my main focus.

4. Rest and relaxation doesn't have to be all or nothing. It also helped me to start being really purposeful about the self care I was doing. I couldn't afford a whole day off to vegetate on the couch, but I could take a walk around the block with a favorite podcast to just look at some trees. Rest didn't have to take up hours - but I could be really present for it, and really enjoy it, making the most of what I could do.

5. Decide on your non-negotiables. My chronic illness and mental health demands that I sleep at night. I cannot pull all nighters. I need at LEAST 6 hours of sleep - so this was my hard line. I could skip workouts, eat a little junkier/faster than normal, but sleep was going to happen, whether I felt like I had done enough or not.

6. Let other people know! I told my parents, I told my friends, I told my husband: this is crunch time, I could use your help! This let people know I might not be as responsive over the phone, and gave me a little space to withdraw into my work cave without raising alarms, but it also gave people a chance to support me in concrete ways. My husband made dinners and didn't give me a hard time about spending less time together, and I could offer him in return a commitment to the end date - this wouldn't last forever.

7. Respect the spirit of the finish line. Once you cross it - once the draft is in, the project launched, the deadline passed - you have to stop working. That's the only way this works - crunch time only really works if it's time limited. So once you hit it, it can be really tempting to look back and say "look at everything I got done! Imagine what I could do if I kept this up!" RESIST THIS. You cannot keep this pace up forever - so give yourself a break. Absolutely take the best strategies and what you've learned about how you work to apply it to your normal life - but you will suffer real consequences to your health and well-being if you never end the crunch time.

building a team of mentors

No one explained to me how to find mentors in graduate school. People gave me a lot of advice, however, on how to select a chair for my dissertation committee, as I imagine there is a lot of advice around selecting a PI or lab to join. In a perfect world, the head of your PhD project would be the keystone of your mentoring as a graduate student. But even if you have the most educated, open-minded, available, supportive chair imaginable, I would still give you the same advice:

Get yourself a team of mentors.

No matter what your after-degree career plans are, no matter what your personal life looks like, and no matter what your subject is, a team of mentors is a wise move professionally, and personally. 

Team mentoring can take some of the pressure off you. 

We are all complex beings, with lives that stretch beyond the PhD. Having a team of people that you look to for advice, mentorship, and support can make it seem less overwhelming when you need to confide difficult information, or seek support about a sensitive topic. Before I consciously started to create a team of mentors, I often hesitated or refrained from confiding in anyone about sensitive issues, because I didn't want it to impact my standing in the program, access to funds, or reputation as a graduate student. But after building a team, I had people in many corners of campus who knew me, and could offer advice without also being directly responsible for overseeing my degree progress. 

Team mentoring can take some of the pressure of your mentors. 

At some point, I realized that it was completely crazy that I was expecting tenured faculty members at an R1 university to give me solid advice and mentoring on how to best translate the skills I learned during the PhD into a job outside of academia. I am not saying that to excuse faculty ignorance, or refusal to engage with the realities of the job market, but to acknowledge that there are many, many people (right on my campus, even!) that could give me much more sound guidance on alt-ac careers because they had them. I had similar issues come up when I had questions about having a family in academia, or how best to manage a job search in a geographically confined area. My mentoring needs had extended beyond the work one mentor could do, and I needed to adjust my strategy. 

By not expecting any one person to give me sound, researched, supportive advice in every area of my life, personal and professional, I freed all parties from that burden. I shifted from asking all of my questions to one person, to asking specific, tailored questions to specific people, leading to richer conversations, and widening my network at the same time.

Okay great, but how do I find the team? 

Well, young grasshopper, first you have to evaluate your mentoring needs. This is the critical step that I see so many clients skip. Many people can see the benefits of expanding their mentoring network beyond their chair, but not many know how to secure a diverse range of voices to support them. And I would argue that stepping back and assessing what one's mentoring needs are FIRST can lead to a more efficient, targeted, and efficient network building phase second. 

I created this chart (download a PDF here) to help you brainstorm what areas you are already receiving great mentoring in, and where you could improve. Of course, these categories might shift depending on your PhD and its parameters, but for most, this is a good starting point. 

5 mentoring zones

Here are some guiding questions for each zone to help you evaluate what kind of support you already have, and what kind of support will support you best moving forward. 

• Discipline/Field/Subject - For many, this is the area that is most easily addressed, and a role that is probably filled by your dissertation advisor, at least partially. Some questions to ask yourself:

  • Do I have support to keep abreast of the latest developments in my field?

  • Are there places I can go to make sure that my work is part of conversations important in my discipline?

  • Am I well connected to mechanisms for distributing work in my field (journals, conferences, Twitter chats, etc)?

  • If my dissertation advisor's research does not completely overlap with mine, am I looking for other spaces and conversations more directly related to my research?
    

• Teaching - Although teaching is not part of all PhD programs, many jobs in academia involve teaching in some capacity. But as many of us know, many jobs in academic, or even academic-adjacent spaces, require teaching as part of the role. Universities are well equipped to support your teaching growth, if you know where to look.

  • Am I getting feedback on my teaching regularly? (Faculty members, staff from teaching centers, student teaching mentors, or even fellow graduate students can give you feedback, or help you interpret the feedback your students give.)

  • Am I learning and growing as a teacher? Am I staying involved in current pedagogy developments, or experimenting with new technologies?

  • Am I seeking out opportunities to teach, even if my funding does not include a regular teaching assignment? (Many students report that giving guest lectures, or volunteering for limited teaching engagements like workshops or grader positions can give them valuable experience on their CV.)
    

• Skills - Grad school gives you a (concentrated!) opportunity to develop many skills, but your advisor might not have the time (or capability) to support your growth in a complete way.

  • Am I improving my skills as a writer? Am I taking advantage of on campus writing centers or support? Am I involved in writing groups? Am i seeking feedback on my writing from a wide range of audiences?

  • Am I improving as a reader? Am I reading widely in my field? Am I organizing the information I ingest?

  • Am I improving my networking skills? Am I practicing my informational interview skills? Am I cultivating an online presence?

  • Am I improving my discipline-specific skills?
    

• Career Planning - For many reasons, your academic advisor might not be best suited to helping you plan out a diverse range of career options. But there are a growing number of spaces and places to help you do just that.

  • Am I being open-minded about the types of jobs and positions I'll be seeking?

  • Am I taking time to meet people from my discipline who hold a wide range of positions?

  • Am I consciously building my CV to support my job-market aspirations?

  • Am I building a resume that will translate to employers outside of academia?

  • Have I sat down and evaluated what kinds of activities I enjoy doing during the PhD and thought through what that might mean for my job search? Have I done the same introspective work about my values, and what kind of whole life I envision for my future?
    

• Personal Life - Being vulnerable isn't easy, especially when in the high pressure academic environment. Building a team of mentors where you have places to go to be your authentic self can be invaluable.

  • Do I have people that I can confide in when I am not feeling my best, mentally, physically or otherwise?

  • Do I have people that will help me connect to the resources I need to be well and healthy without worry of career or future impacts?

  • Am I building a network of people whose values align with mine, and who can respect my values and how I choose to live them?

  • Do I have people who will be able to listen, respect, and talk through personal issues in confidential and sensitive ways?

Building the team

Try taking the "Whole Life Mentoring" wheel and placing people where you think they best support you. Do you have an empty spaces? Hopefully the answers to the questions in each section will guide you as you determine where your network of support is already strong, and where it can be built up. 

And when you've identified an area where you can build your network, these questions will help you narrow down the specific kind of support and mentoring you're looking for. Need more support in teaching? Look to a teaching center, teaching workshops on campus, or faculty members in your department who may not necessarily align with your research but are well regarded for their teaching. And then you have the beginnings of a script to approach them, and ask for their help. Keep in mind that specific, limited requests are always a good place to start when building a new relationship. For example, emailing a professor whose teaching you admire to ask if they'll review a syllabus you are pitching for next fall, (bonus points if you can guide that feedback even more specifically by asking questions or limiting their feedback to structure, or content!) is much more likely to garner a positive response than asking for "mentoring on teaching." Mentoring is built on a relationship, but beginning that relationship with a specific request can feel more genuine, and less forced. 

The important thing is to remember that not every mentor needs to be perfectly aligned with you in every area of the mentoring wheel. Some people may give you outstanding mentorship in the aspects of your discipline that are confusing and cliquish while also giving you terrible advice about the job market, or teaching, or how to build a fulfilling personal life. Having clear expectations, both for each person in your mentoring team, and for yourself as the designer, builder, and maintainer of that team, can make these abstract relationships much more concrete and useful. 

don't take my advice: productivity, inclusivity, and shame

One of the things that keeps me up at night as a coach is: I cannot possibly give fully inclusive advice or recommendations. I can try and write up my thoughts, tools, and resources, with the most generous framing as possible, and seek out experiences unlike my own to consider and test my strategies, but it still won't work for everyone. And when your goal is to HELP ALL THE GRAD STUDENTS, this can be so frustrating. 

Academia is obsessed, just like the rest of the world, with productivity, life hacks, systems, and strategies to make work easier. But the message underneath all of those tools (which I peddle too!) is the idea that time not spent working is time wasted, except for the time set aside purposefully for self-care, which should be productive in restoring you to enable more work. We are all looking for ways to get more done ever more quickly, so that we can do more. 

Just imagine: you've accomplished all of your work that you set out to do for the week. Isn't there a little pull to do more, to get ahead, so you can fit in extra work? If I'm ahead on my dissertation chapter revisions, I'll have more time to work on that journal submission. And if I publish three journal articles while I'm a grad student, I'll have more time as a new junior faculty member to work on my book manuscript, so that I'll already have a second book under contract by the time my tenure file is being assembled - if not my second book! 

Even our hobbies need to be productive! At first, when I started knitting, I enjoyed the pure learning curve of it all. But once I was even a little proficient, I started to wonder about making it productive. As I was sitting, watching a Ken Burns documentary, I was looking at my knitting and I caught myself thinking "well, if I can knit a blanket this quickly and they're of high enough quality, and the yarn costs this much, how much reasonably could I sell these for?" Here was this hobby, that I explicitly started because I had a bad habit of working on my computer while watching TV at night, and I can't knit and write content at the same time, and I was still feeling an urge to make that time profitable. 

I want to be clear - if you feel called to get ahead in your work so you have more flexibility - go for it! It feels great to have choices about how to spend your time, rather than only ever working on the thing that was due four days ago. And if you want to spend your down time knitting the world's most awesome hats, or sewing up cosplay outfits, and selling them, do it! Side gigs are awesome! But if you get real quiet, and you hear from yourself that the real reason you're obsessed with efficiency and usefulness is that you believe your time only matters if it's spent in service of your future goals, I'd encourage you to question why that is. 

As a coach, I've dedicated myself to learning how and why people use their time, and how they wish it would be different. I believe strongly in the power of doing things that do not serve your professional goals, on purpose and regularly, to reflect in your schedule that not every part of your life has to serve your professional advancement. I also often discuss the importance of self-care. Not necessarily the bubble bath and treat yourself shopping sprees, although those have their place, but the sleep, diet, movement, fun, and creativity that can so often fall by the wayside. But, the constant "self care is important!" refrain can be alienating and guilt inducing as often as it is helpful. 

Early on in my Twitter career, someone thoughtfully asked me what they were supposed to do when there was literally no time in a busy, full life for the time intensive self-care strategies I was championing. The guilt was overwhelming, they said - knowing that all these things could help, but not having the resources to enact them, and still having to deal with burnout, exhaustion, etc. Ultimately, advice like that was alienating - good for someone, but not for everyone. 

I replied then, and stand by the idea now, that in some circumstances, self-care is ignoring advice, however well intentioned. If you know, in your gut, that the way someone is suggesting just won't work, let it go. Stop trying to force yourself into a habit, routine, technique, or strategy that was created by someone else. Their life isn't your life, so it's okay if what works for them just won't work for you. 

So, don't always take my advice. Or anyone else's. Take the time to know what is important in your life, in your value system, in your future planning, and then only use the strategies that align with those things. Use your time wisely, but define what that means for yourself.