Getting a Good Read on the Situation

I struggled to get out of bed this morning. I partially attribute this to the darkness of the early hour, and partially to intimidation. I have a long to-do list this week! I let a few tasks simmer on the back burner over the past two weeks while I focused on a time-sensitive project. I'm excited to get moving on a few of these tasks, like planning my travel for January through April. Inherent in planning this travel, however, is deciding what I will research, and where, and for how long. So many choices!

Although my heart's true desire was to spend the entire day in bed playing Bejeweled on my iPad, I declared today a dedicated reading day. Reading seemed like a decent compromise between productive efficiency and total evasion of responsibility. Reading is the most inert activity in my profoundly sedentary profession, and it's like green eggs and ham: you can do it in a bed, you can do it on a couch, you can sit stiff as the dead, or bend over in a slouch. 

The first three years of graduate school are heavily weighted towards reading, with a side of writing. Coursework in history usually demands you read a book a week per course. Preparing for doctoral exams forces you to read a book a day for about five months straight. After that, you read on an as-needed basis.

I've really struggled with incorporating reading into my life as a dissertator. I started out slow, and introduced fiction back into my routine. I rationalized that it would be easier to muster enthusiasm for stories about vampires than for stories about the past (though sometimes those interests combined in magical ways). Now that I'm getting further into the dissertation research, though, I recognize that I have to keep up with the history books (and articles) on the subjects I'm writing about. I'm finding it hard to switch gears from reading documents to reading a book, especially because I prioritize the former activity. I try to devote my most productive morning hours to the mountain of evidence that I'm digging through, and by the time I'm done it's hard to concentrate on a book. The consequence of this is that I haven't done much reading lately....

So, what is the point of this story? It's just a reminder to myself that a day spent supine is not a day wasted, as long as there's a history book in my hands. 

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I'd love to hear other researchers strategies for tacking between research, reading, and writing! Do you have any personal rules or self-imposed structures for finding this balance?

Clocking Out

In a more traditional job, paid time off is a benefit that follows a strict procedure. Vacation days are accrued over time. Employees submit requests to their managers before they take these vacation days. These requests are explicitly approved or denied. When you take those vacation days, you leave the office behind and you fly off to Aruba without a care in the world. At least ideally.

When you are your own manager, it's hard to know whether to approve time off. Have you worked enough to accrue vacation days? Will the project get done on time without you? Is this a good time to leave or would it be better to wait and take a longer break later? When you do take time off, it's also more difficult to leave the work behind... the trade off of managing yourself is that the manager comes along on your vacation.

It's really important to take breaks away from work (and to leave behind the manager when you're off the clock). First of all, it's a chance to scale back from the nitty-gritty. It's easy to overemphasize the importance of the task you're hacking away at, whether that be a dissertation chapter or a set of documents or a stack of secondary readings on a particular topic. Leaving behind that tight focus for a few days provides a chance, upon your return, to reflect on the project as a whole. It's helpful to remember the relevance of that particular slice and to return to it with a renewed sense of purpose. 

Perhaps even more importantly, vacation is a time to heal the body and mind. Writing a dissertation is an extreme mental workout! You have think deeply AND exercise an enormous amount of self control. Vacation is a break from harnessing willpower; it's a few days to be impulsive and spontaneous and lazy. Vacation is also a few days to stretch out the spine, rest the eyes, decaffeinate a bit (just a bit!), and maybe even expose the skin to sunshine. 

I make a case for vacation in the interest of both the manager and the worker. Happy, well-rested graduate students produce more and better quality work. In summary, clocking out occasionally is an investment in the dissertation and not a detriment. 

Positivity

When you are the boss of yourself, you have to be the one to motivate and reward yourself. Rewards are easy. I've bribed myself with myriad things over the years, most egregiously with an embarrassingly expensive makeup brush. I simply wanted the brush badly enough that I stayed committed to my goal of writing every weekday. 

Motivation can be trickier than providing an incentive. It seems like it would be easier, and certainly cheaper. I find it much more difficult, however, to consistently tell myself that I should sit down to work because I am awesome at what I do and because I love what I do. Both of these points are  compelling and true. When other people remind me of this, I feel buoyant, confident, and enthusiastic. It's really, really hard to maintain this state on your own. Partially this is because telling yourself that you're fabulous feels inauthentic, and partially this is because I forget to practice positive self-talk until I've descended into a dark place of self-loathing and despair. It's much more difficult to dig yourself out of that pit than it is to keep your confidence riding high. 

I've been working really hard at practicing positivity. Here are some of my strategies:

1. Make a list of everything you've done today or this week or this month. Put down absolutely everything that required more than minimal effort. That includes loads of laundry, any form of cleaning that improved your quality of life, important emails sent, books read, pages written, lesson plans prepared, all incidents of exercise, and any meetings pertaining to your work (particularly those involving your advisors). Marvel at the labor it takes to move through life.

2. Go to a coffee shop or a yoga class or a bar--anywhere that you could feasibly run into a stranger who asks you "what you do." Explaining your work to a non-expert always makes you feel really smart. You know things!

3. Listen to your anthem on repeat. Internalize the message.

4. Pull out the first graded paper you wrote in graduate school and compare it to the most recent page you've written. Even the clunkiest page of your dissertation will look brilliant next to that first attempt at coherence. How could you not compliment yourself after facing this evidence of growth and intellectual maturity? 

5. I'm not above asking my partner or my parents to tell me I'm smart, pretty, kind, thoughtful, and a net-positive addition to society. I don't dig for the compliment because it feels desperate and then I feel loathe myself even more. I just ask someone to pick up their pom-poms and start cheering for me. After their rah-rah-rah I can usually rally for a few rounds of "2-4-6-8-who-do-we-appreciate." I have no shame. 

Ultimately, it's less about what you do than how often you do it. It's healthy to be self-aware and self-critical, but you have to balance it with a daily dose of self-affirmation. 

I CAN DO ANYTHING GOOD!

Petit Bourgeoisie

I've been incredibly happy and satisfied with my life over the past few months, and I've put a lot of thought into what exactly has contributed to my buoyant mental state. Certainly I have absorbed some of the joy and confidence my partner feels in his new job. He has also sustained and nourished me in more tangible ways, by feeding me delicious dinners most days of the week. My family and friends are healthy and happy and are experiencing successes in their own lives, so I feel naches about that. I'm knitting a sweater, which is a fun challenge. I've traveled to Boston, Gainesville, Baltimore, and New York City (several times). These trips gave me a chance to spend time with family and old friends. I also got a lot of work done in NYC, which was professionally fulfilling. 

What has made me happiest, however, has been the autonomy that I've gained since beginning my dissertation. I wake up every day and decide where, when, and how to do my work. Sometimes that means pulling my laptop into bed at 6:30 AM and diving right into my documents. Other mornings I force myself out of bed right away and head out to a coffee shop, so that I don't give myself the opportunity to fall back asleep, or do the dishes, or try on all of the winter dresses I just brought up from the basement. And once I begin working, I choose whether to start by writing or by reading. I set my own priorities, and I can give myself the time and flexibility I need to ensure that I complete the task and complete it well. There are days I work for six hours straight. Those days are uncommon and awesome. There are also days I barely manage to sit in front of the computer for three hours. Those days are also uncommon and, frankly, feel terrible. 

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It's not that I love having no structure. Quite the opposite, actually. My life is quite structured, in the way that a bounce house has a finite boundary. The walls of my work week span from 7:00 AM on Monday morning to (at the latest) 5:00 PM on Friday. I do not bounce in the bounce house on the weekends. That's when I do more sedentary activity, like watch Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles and playing Bejeweled on my iPad. There's no height requirement to get in the bounce house. The only rule is that you bounce for at least three hours each day, preferably four, ideally five. There's no overtime though so I don't overexert myself. 

The problem with the bounce house, however, is that I rent it from a cranky, paranoid overlord who has goals and ambitions and gets very very worried about liability. It is amazing to bounce in the bounce house. What is really not fun is being responsible for it. 

It's remarkable that I get to be my own boss--well, within reason, since ultimately I'm accountable to my dissertation committee and to the university that pays my bills. As the boss, though, I can be really hard on myself when I don't meet my own expectations. My partner asked me once why I shamed myself so often over perceived shortcomings of productivity. Through fumbling to answer his question, I realized that I am at once a bourgeois and a proletarian. I own the means of my production, and I desire to maximize its potential for my own gain. I am also forced to work every day for my wages, and it's mentally exhausting work. The best I can manage is to be a petit bourgeois as often as I can... to manage the productivity, provide a safe and rewarding workplace for the worker, and try to keep the boss-lady happy. And lately, I've been doing a really good job at it.

Luxuriating

The liminality I discussed on Tuesday comes with one small silver lining—along with a transition of task comes a transition in schedule. Although I will have a ten-week internship this summer that requires me to work regular business hours Monday-Thursday, it will be the exception for the next three years. While dissertating, I can set my own schedule. Unless I am teaching, I do not have to go to campus. I can work when I want, where I want, with whomever I want.

I do get a significant amount of work done in my office, but it’s a depressing space. All of the grads are housed in one large room that’s divided into four rows of cubicles. There are no windows and thus no natural light. The fluorescent lighting has a yellow cast that makes everyone in there look like they’re experiencing liver failure. It’s a decent place to spend a few hours writing during the winter, when you know that everywhere else is just as depressing and possibly not as warm. When the weather is nice, I much prefer to work at a well-lit coffee shop—my favorite spot even has an outdoor patio! I find that I write best when I move locations day-to-day. It’s nice to have new scenery.

These days, I’m really enjoying the process of waking up slowly, walking to a coffeeshop slowly, and drinking a latte really slowly. Easing into the day is such a luxury. I have nothing urgent to do, and since I work for myself I set my own goals and deadlines. And right now, I’ve decided that everything can be done slowly. I trust myself, and I am confident that everything will get done.