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finishthatthesis · 8 years ago

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How much should I be writing??

This is a tough question because there are so many variables that impact the answer. Let’s be real, if you’re working a full-time job while finishing a dissertation, you aren’t going to be able to write as much as someone who is a full-time student (this is a whole other post!). If you’re teaching that semester, ESPECIALLY if you are teaching new prep, that is going to suck up a lot of time. You have a child and part-time childcare? Your time is going to be limited.

Writing consistently, every day, is the most important thing. I usually say “every week day” but even that varies depending on your schedule. Folks with full-time jobs almost always have to write on the weekends.

However, what is a good goal? This is a moving target, because if you aren’t a regular writer, that should be your goal first. And just like running, you have to build up your stamina. If you’re coming from writing zero, or from a habit of not writing, not writing, not writing, but then binge-writing for the two days before a deadline, your goal should be 15 minutes a day.

When you can do that reasonably easily, then you start increasing. Your target should be based on your schedule. I always aimed for 4 sessions of 45 minutes each, but I don’t think I ever got there. It was more normal for me to do 3 sessions of 45 minutes of writing.

What I will tell you is that there does seem to be a maximum limit for a sustainable writing habit, and that is 4 hours per day. That is not scientific, that is just what I’ve seen from working with clients. I have some tremendously productive folks that I work with, who just like the accountability and community that they get from being part of a coaching group, and I see them writing no more than 4 hours a day on a regular basis. That isn’t “all work” only writing - this doesn’t include emails, reading, data analysis, meetings, teaching. This is just writing.

There are inevitably periods where people have to write more than 4 hours a day - like when you’re facing down a deadline. Even when you’re writing consistently and making good progress, you usually face a final push at the end and end up writing some long sessions. And what happens is that this is pretty exhausting to do for more than maybe a couple of weeks straight. Graduate students will do that final push, working for 6-12 hours/day on their dissertation, for a week or two (in one rare occasion it was a month), but it does take a toll. The toll is worth it, but when it’s done, usually people go off the grid for a little while to recover. I have seen clients do these long sessions to meet conference deadlines, and usually those are only a few days of long hours of writing, and then they will have to take a few days off. This is totally fine and expected - it just means that when you’re not writing 8 hours a day every single day, you don’t need to feel bad. Sustainability is crucial.

To write successfully day after day after day, you have to pace yourself.

#academia #writing #academic writing #phd life #dissertation #finishthatthesis #academic problems

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finishthatthesis · 9 years ago

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On the importance of writing consistently

Writing consistently hides a multitude of sins. You would be surprised. In my opinion, the most important thing you can do in graduate school is to write every day for at least 15 minutes. This is not a new idea. There is a great book out there called Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes A Day, and this sounds totally laughable. And..... it is. You can’t write your dissertation if you really only spend 15 minutes a day working on it. But the magic is in the “a day” part - writing every day (every weekday, at least) makes it easier to write every day. That sounds cyclical, but what happens is that when you force yourself to sit down and write for 15 minutes, even if all you write is half a sentence, the next day will be easier. And the day after that will be easier.

This doesn’t mean you won’t struggle. You will. But the magic is in those 15 minutes. Just like Kimmy Schmidt declares that she can do anything for 10 seconds, you can write for 15 minutes. You can. It doesn’t have to be good writing. It doesn’t have to be fast writing. Just write. Do it.

After a while, push yourself a bit. Do 2 sessions of 15 minutes each. Then expand those 15 minute sessions to 20 minutes. Keep expanding. Then, on those hard days, those days where you can’t do it, fall back on your “at least 15 minutes” plan.

So when you hit this point, of writing every weekday for at least 15 minutes, you will still have your ups and downs. Days where the words won’t come, where you spend 45 minutes staring at the page and manage to get 3 sentences out. The beauty of consistency is that you will also have days where you write 3 pages in those 45 minutes. If you’re writing every day, whether you have a good day or a bad day doesn’t matter. They will balance each other out, and over time you will have more good days and the bad days won’t matter as much.

Do you think you’re lazy? Are you a big procrastinator? Writing for 15 minutes a day is something even the laziest procrastinator can do - I should know, because I used to think of myself as a lazy procrastinator. Just showing up every day and putting words on paper, no matter how bad, even if it’s just for 15 minutes, will, over time, conquer any real or perceived laziness and overcome procrastination.

You can do this. I promise. Just give me 15 minutes a day to start.

#finish that thesis #finishthatthesis #writing #academic writing #academia #dissertation #phd life #PhD #PhD Problems

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finishthatthesis · 9 years ago

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My ideas before I start writing

There is a saying “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” In my field, we attribute this to James March, but I have seen it elsewhere. Writing helps you process your ideas. It reveals the muddiness of your thinking, it exposes the holes. And then you have to go in and write to fix them, making the ideas stronger and clearer. This is why it is okay and ENCOURAGED to have what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts.” The writing isn’t the end product, it is actually the process itself.

#writing #anne lamott #finishthatthesis

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finishthatthesis · 10 years ago

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Shut Up and Write Tuesdays

The twitter account Shit Academics Say posted about this today - it’s a great idea - Shut Up and Write Tuesdays. It is basically chat writing on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, done at 3 times during the day around the globe - one at 10 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time, one at 10 AM British Summer Time for UK/Europe folks, and one at 10 AM Central time for North American folks. They run it for an hour, using the pomodoro method. Check the website for the specifics. The next one is September 15th.

https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/about-2/

#shut up and write tuesdays #finishthatthesis #academia #geterdone

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