Note: In the “Are You Working?” series, a Ph.D. and academic-writing coach answers questions from faculty members and graduate students about scholarly motivation and productivity. This month’s questions arrived via Twitter and Facebook. Read her previous columns here.
Question: When I revise, I sometimes end up overworking things and creating problems where there weren’t any before. How do I avoid doing this?
Signed,
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
Dear CSWS,
Ludwig Wittgenstein once famously said that the most important part of the intricate, perplexing Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was its ethical and aesthetic corpus — which, famously, did not exist. He’d just spent the latter part of the Tractatus attesting that the language of ethics, aesthetics, and enigmas was nonsensical because “any question that can be asked can be answered,” and ending the infuriating treatise with the infamous remark 7.53: Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen, or, that whereof we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence. Therefore, the most “important” part of the work was the part he didn’t write.
This might have been Wittgenstein just being a jerk (he was, famously, an incredible jerk), but he also had a point. Sometimes what we don’t do is as important as what we do. And this is especially the case when you’re writing something difficult.
You’re missing a key ingredient in your revisions here, CSWS, and that ingredient is time — specifically, time as far away as humanly possible from whatever it is you’re working on.
Once you get about 75 percent through redrafting a chapter, a paper, or even a section, my recommendation is to put the thing away for exactly one week. If this revision was particularly draining to create, intellectually or emotionally, set it aside for two weeks. Any longer than two weeks and you might forget what you were talking about. (On the bright side: You’ll read the cleanest parts of your manuscript and think, Who is this very smart person and how did she come up with that?) Any less time and you’ll be back where you started, overworking something because you’re too close to it and at risk of mangling it beyond recognition because you are writing entirely in a shorthand that no reader but you will understand.
So you’ve got to take a break from the draft — just long enough to stop understanding most of your weird shorthand, but not long enough that you stop understanding any of it. Then you will be able to read the work with eyes that are just fresh enough to see exactly what you need to do to make it all make sense.
Question: Once again, I find myself overwhelmed with circumstances beyond my control — now intertwined, thanks to Covid, with two years’ worth of interrupted work. I seem unable to stick to a regular research schedule with everything I have to do. How can I make time for long-term projects when I can barely make time to wash my face in the morning?
Signed,
Still Not OK
Dear SNO,
After yet another stressful start to a new year, I, too, am wondering when (or whether) I will ever be OK again, but the good news is it’s been so long since I was OK that I’ve forgotten what it feels like!
Here’s something I’ve been recommending to my overwhelmed clients lately and they tell me it helps. When you plan out your work for the week — and yes, Step No. 1 is to create a very simple list (put it somewhere easily accessible) that plans out your research time and sets succinct, concrete, and very, very reasonable goals — give yourself one simple caveat:
If you feel too overwhelmed to even begin the task you’ve set for the day, make a deal with yourself to cut the task in half. Say your goal is to do 90 minutes’ work on a section of your manuscript, or 90 minutes’ focused note-taking on something you’re reading, or 90 minutes’ coding data. Before you do a full vintage Sesame Street Don Music impression (“Rats, I’ll never finish … never!”) and give up, cut your task in half and tell yourself you only have to do 45 minutes. If you’ve scheduled 30, tell yourself you’ve only got to do 15. If all you’ve scheduled is 15 minutes’ of work, and you still want to crumple at the thought of it, then literally set a timer on your phone for 7.5 minutes and remind yourself you can do almost anything for 7.5 minutes.
The key: Keep at it for any amount of time so you maintain momentum.
As I’m sure you know, one of the hardest things to do as a writer is to restart work on a draft you’ve abandoned. The period of abandonment seems to grow longer and longer the more you fret about it — a state of affairs best avoided at all costs. Cutting your goal in half will generally fool the work-averse part of your mind into thinking it’s gotten away with something. That leaves space for the rest of you to actually get something done.
Question: What’s something that seems counterintuitive that you always recommend to clients who are struggling with their writing, and that I should try?
Signed,
Friendly Contrarian
Well, FC, take a walk.
It may not sound like it but I’m serious. If you’ve scheduled 30 minutes of work time for a given day but are so overwhelmed and dreading even half that amount of time, then, if you can, put on some shoes and get outside.
Don’t bring anyone else. Don’t listen to podcasts or music. Make it about just you and some fresh air. Now walk around for about 10 to 15 minutes and allow yourself to space out about your project. As the walking endorphins start to kick in, you will likely stop fretting about how much there is to do and how much you don’t want to do it. Sentences may start to come to you.
Or, if you’re like me, you may start visualizing the broad contours of your argument and a vague outline might take shape. (If you’re still fretting, walk faster. If you’re in better shape than me, jog.)
When you come back home, do a breakneck 15-minute free-write without even taking your coat off. If that’s too daunting, talk into your voice memo app for about 2 minutes (longer than that will be impossible to transcribe) about what came to you while you were outside on the move.
Now what are you waiting for? Get out there and start your walk/write!
