How to do that thing

I had tenure once. At an R1 university. I left that job because of a lot of reasons too complicated to go into in a single blog post. When I am talking to people about my decision to leave academia, they often ask me if I'm glad I made the decision to leave. 

Hell yes.

I shouldn't be too honest here, because who knows, I might actually want to work at a university again some day. Not today, but maybe someday. Anyway, people usually ask me what I miss about academia. Not much, I say. "But don't you miss the..." they ask. "Nope." I say. I sacrificed too much to miss anything. It's hard to explain. If I want to be entirely truthful, I do miss one thing. 

I miss working with PhD students. I don't miss sitting across the desk from students and trying to convince them to drop out because their lives were falling apart and they were failing their classes and going broke trying to work full time and take all their classes in two years and raise their families and be the primary wage earners and understand this really complex stuff that we were teaching that was NOTHING like what they had learned as masters students. That was heartbreaking. 

brainses by Stephanie Curry on Pixabay

I miss having students come to me because they had these amazing puzzles in their brainses and they needed help figuring out how to assemble those puzzles. Often those puzzles were a combination of theory, methodology, feasibility, and basic time management. I loved those puzzles. It was so much fun when a student came to my office and they looked so frantic, on the edge of a panic attack, unsure how the hell they were going to answer that research question that they had been working out for the past few years, and how they would do it before they ran out of funding/time/energy. It makes me excited just remembering. 

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I am a lot like those students. I procrastinate with the best of them. I have read just about every single productivity book. I have gone through so many different productivity systems, trying to figure out how to maximize my time with the least amount of effort. When I was writing my dissertation, I spent more time thinking about how to find time to write the dissertation than I actually wrote. Since then, I've learned a lot about working well, how I work, and how to help other people work. I like to think that I've actually gotten pretty good at helping people get past those obstacles in their paths, helping them realize that the boulders are really just little stones they can easily navigate past. It takes practice, but there are tools you can use to get through, even if you have a nonlinear brain like mine. 

How to Do That Thing

So you have a thing you need to do. It's huge, it has a lot of parts, and the longer you wait to start, the scarier it gets. Are you getting so freaked out by the thing, you are considering moving to another country? Have you thought about changing your name and address? Are you wondering why anyone ever thought YOU would ever be able to do that thing, you are in so deep if you back out now everyone will think you are stupid, if you back out now you're just proving to everyone that you really are stupid and insufficient and a disgrace to your family name? Yup. Been there. 

Before we start, let me reassure you that I have been there. I may be there right now, in fact. I may have been up half the night having those very thoughts. You are not alone. I want you to know that you ARE the right person for this, and you were selected to do it because you are the ONLY person who can do it. It may not feel like it right now, but it's true. Let all that stuff go. It's just the monsters whispering in your ears, and we will just leave them in the past. They do not belong in your brain any more. If they come back, just tell them that Dr. Haozous said that they don't belong in your brain, now they can kindly go away. If they don't leave, then you can go take a shower or something, wash those nasties away. 

Okay, now that we've put the monster nasties in the past, I want you to get out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil with a good eraser. I know, everyone wants to use paper from the recycled pile, but for this I really want you to use something clean and pristine. I know everyone tells you to make lists, and we nonlinear people hate that, so I'm not going to start with lists, but you know where this is going. 

TIPS (in list form)

1. Start at the end. Write out your final goals. What is the expected outcome? A clean house? A dissertation? A research proposal? A completed research project with 5-9 academic papers? that goes at the end of the page, wherever you decide the end of the page is. Once you know where you're going, then make a timeline (I work backwards) filling in the key benchmarks that will get you to that goal. You don't need to be perfect and you don't need to include every. single. detail. This activity forces us nonlinear people to think through a project with the goal in mind so we make ordered decisions. Use that eraser so you can move things around as needed. 
2. It's okay if you make a mistake. Own your mistakes. Learn from your mistakes. Move on.
3. If you don't know where to start, just start somewhere. If you picked the wrong thing to start on, it's okay. You learned something. Maybe you wasted a little time or money. That's okay, it's better than the time and money you wasted listening to the monsters. Move on. 
4. Ask for help early and often. People love to help. Some of the best help you can get is having someone help you with making a list of things to do, write up your timeline, or prioritize your list. All you have to do is ask, and believe me, there are a lot of people who would love to have something like helping you give them an excuse to procrastinate their own thing. 
5. Make a list. I know, here's the list thing. But now for the value added content! Make a list, but make sure that you have achievable items on your list. It's okay to have big benchmarks on your list, but give yourself some freebies too. I always put "shower" on my list. "Get the mail." Then I can mark those off and feel like I really accomplished something. 
6. Give yourself rewards. These need to be things you really want. I once forced myself to go shopping for new shoes, but I wouldn't allow myself to BUY the shoes until I submitted a manuscript. It was agonizing. I love those shoes, and I worked really hard for them. It could be something small too! You showered? Have a twizzler! Do sticker charts light your fire? Make a sticker chart with some really awesome stickers. Just don't get caught up with making productivity charts and lose track of the actual goal. I'm looking at you, bujo fiends.
7. Give yourself a change of scenery. Go to the cafe, the lounge, the living room. Print out stuff and go to a park. Disconnect and go to the beach. 
8. Have an accountability buddy. Find someone who you can check in with online or via text. They keep you honest, and you keep them honest. Focusmate has virtual accountability buddies if you just need SOMEONE on the other end of the line but don't care who. 
9. Use the pomodoro system (this works well with rewards). This is an online timer that you set for 25 minutes, then have 5 minutes off, then go for another 25 minutes, over and over. People talk about doing so many pomodoros, and then getting a reward. It works really well, especially for people who need to do things like write term papers. 
10. Last but not at all least, don't fall for the trap in your brain that is telling you that conditions have to be perfect for you to get the thing done. Your house/desk does not have to be pristine. You do not need a solid 6 hours of time blocked off. You will only get your thing done by doing it, and that only happens by accepting that perfect conditions will never exist. Your disheveled desk is not keeping you from working. Your brain is keeping you from working. So tell those little monsters in your brain to piss off, go take a shower, have a twizzler, and stop looking backward. Look to the future and get to work. 

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**This blog post was inspired by a facebook question from a friend. Thanks, Geri!