What are you doing for the rest of the year? I know, I know. What a question! If you’re like most academics, you have no idea. Whether you’ll be teaching face to face or online is to be determined (no matter what your institution is saying right now). You don’t know if your kids will
Have you ever taken a knife skills course? Generally, you only need 3 or 4 knives in your kitchen; a chef’s knife, a serrated knife, and a paring knife will do most everything. The key to successful knife skills is knowing how to use each knife to do multiple jobs. With a chef’s knife,
Do you ever reach Friday afternoon and wonder what the heck you did all week? Do you find yourself working 60+ hours a week and wondering how some academics manage to get everything done in less than 45 hours? If so, you should do a time audit. This is an exercise I’ve been doing with
Do you have a daily to-do list? How often do you check off every item on it? If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any amount of time, you know I rarely take hard, uncompromising positions. In fact, I pride myself on the personalized, iterative approach I bring to productivity when working with
During a recent newsletter coaching call (are you signed up for my newsletter? I offer occasional group coaching to subscribers), a participant asked about aligning her goals with her priorities. More specifically, she expressed concern that she wasn’t completing her work in a reasonable amount of time. I bet you can relate. Here’s the general
Have you ever sat down to make a to-do list and felt overwhelmed by the enormity of your goals? Many academic writers struggle with this feeling. There’s just so much to accomplish (publish these articles for tenure, prep an entirely new course, plan this conference, etc), and the journey to achieving those goals can feel
With a new semester comes changes to your writing schedule. During the summer, you may have had long blocks of writing time away from faculty meetings, office hours, and course prep. Once the semester starts, you may only have short writing blocks —as short as 15-30 minutes a day— when you’re teaching, so it’s important
The beginning of the semester brings a new opportunity to make a semester writing plan. For academics, late summer can have a New Year’s resolution vibe. But, just like the New Year’s plans that end up in the resolution graveyard, your writing plans can be similarly unattainable. The problem of unattainable goals has two
Summer is right around the corner. Finally, three long months when you get to focus on your own writing. You’re either relishing the prospect of having long, uninterrupted blocks of writing time or you’re feeling like that much unstructured time is a recipe for disaster. No matter how you’re feeling, it’s essential that you
I was talking to a client the other day who told me they were behind on their writing. They felt disappointed at their lack of progress. Unfortunately, this client isn’t unique. This is a conversation I have with many clients. Writers who fall behind on their work often internalize a sense of failure and
Happy New Year! Did you make a resolution for 2019? Do you normally make resolutions? I used to love making resolutions. I’d spent a good chunk of December thinking through what I wanted for the new year, and what I wanted to leave behind. I always had a lot of hope for those
Congratulations! You just got a revise and resubmit. The necessary revisions will be extensive, but nothing you can’t handle. Unfortunately, the editor gave you a strict deadline, and you’re working on your book proposal. You didn’t expect this revise and resubmit to reach your desk so quickly, so understandably, you feel a bit panicked. You
Book writers face two obstacles. First, they plan to write their book as if they aren’t working on anything else. Second, they work on everything else at the expense of writing their book. Here’s what I mean: You’re writing a six-chapter book, and you give yourself nine months to complete it, from start to
Imagine walking through a bookstore and browsing the section on writing guides. You come across a title, How to Write Your Book in 90 Days: A Writer’s Manual. You roll your eyes and laugh. “What a ridiculous idea,” you think to yourself, “nobody can write a book in such a short amount of time.” A
You probably have someone in your department or workplace who works very, very hard. Their productivity is through the roof. You know who I’m talking about. Your colleague down the hall who is ALWAYS in their office. When you arrive in the morning, they are already there. When you leave in the evening, they’re still
Congratulations on completing another semester! You probably feel a great sense of relief. Unfortunately, this feeling is probably short-lived. This is what usually happens: We finish the semester in a frantic way (although hopefully less frantic than usual if you’ve been taking my blog posts to heart). We feel exhausted, and are just grateful to be DONE.
November is Academic Writing Month, or #AcWriMo. This is a month where you set an ambitious writing goal and write with a community of fellow academic writers. You get virtual support and accountability. To learn more about it, check out this blog post. You can also follow the hashtag on Twitter and Facebook. I think #AcWriMo
Writing is hard, and sometimes we don’t feel like doing it. When that happens, we make excuse after excuse. “I’m tired,” or “I’m busy,” when what we really mean to say is “I don’t feel like it.” There are a plethora of feelings one can have towards their writing, and my intention is not
Raise your hand if this has happened to you: You sit down at your desk to start writing and you have every intention to get a lot done. Unfortunately, there’s a pile of student papers on the desk. You begin to think about grading them, then you remember you have to make photocopies
Many, many years ago I had a complicated surgery. Thankfully, my surgeon was a badass. He traveled the world giving lectures and worked at one of the most prestigious teaching hospitals in the country. In addition to pioneering surgical procedures, he mentored residents and published prolifically. Now, I’m not writing you to brag about
Eight months ago I launched my signature coaching service, The Productivity Pipeline. I started the service in response to a problem many of my clients faced. Now, I’m relaunching the service, to so speak. Although anyone can sign up at any time of the year, the beginning of the semester is a great time to
Have you ever been in a situation where you fully intend to say no to a request, but your guilt gets the best of you? Then, before you know it, you’ve taken on an additional commitment that is more time consuming and frustrating than you ever would have imagined. This is a problem that
When I was on the tenure-track, I spent the month of August frantically uploading articles to Blackboard, maneuvering to get better classroom assignments for the courses I taught, and trying to wrap up my summer writing projects. The writing goals I had set at the beginning of the summer now seemed like a list of
There’s a lot of productivity advice out there, even on this blog. Much of it focuses on thinking about different ways to “manage” or “maximize” your time – to do as much as you can with limited resources. Productivity is, of course, a type of production, and as such being productive means having greater output.
It seems like reaching “inbox zero” is the holy grail for busy people. We are in a never-ending battle with our inbox, and no matter how hard we try, we feel powerless to control the flow of messages sent to us. Part of our dilemma concerning email is that when we manage our email
I am currently working with multiple clients through my service The Productivity Pipeline. In this post, I am going to give you concrete examples of what that coaching work looks like, what my clients are learning, and the benefits they have received. My work with my clients is confidential. Therefore, this description is not
The harsh truth about academia is that once you finish graduate school, there is really no formalized system of professional development. You can seek out support from individual mentors, and you may be lucky enough to land at an institution that offers a pro-seminar of some sorts for incoming faculty. There might even be some
People assume a writing schedule should include one or the other – either a quantifiable measure (such as time spent or words written) or a qualitative goal (introduction complete, reading completed for literature review). You are either going to enter “write 30 minutes” or “finish introduction” in your planner. The problem with using a single
Productivity coaching is a type of one-on-one work with writers to develop systems of accountability in writing. I work with you to set realistic writing goals and give you the tools to achieve those goals. When we work together, your writing will become routine rather than haphazard and inconsistent. Your writing sessions will be more rewarding
When you sit down to make a writing schedule, it’s natural to feel some resistance towards developing a plan and ultimately, a system that will get you started writing and keep you writing. Generally, there are five objections that writers express – none of which are mutually exclusive. These myths about creating a writing schedule
In my time working as an academic editor, I’ve noticed a pattern. Clients repeatedly submit their work to me well after our mutually agreed upon deadline. Or, they contact me for an initial consultation with only days to spare before they have to submit their writing for publication. As a result, they incur rush fees,
Trying to please everyone may be holding you back from productive writing. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in the following situation. You are in your office working, with the door closed. Suddenly, someone knocks on your door. You answer it to a student who has dropped by to discuss their grade. You remind
Fridays have a way of sneaking up on us. As much as we all look forward to the end of the work week and the weekend, we’ve also all had that moment where we look up from our desk, realize it’s late afternoon on a Friday, and ask ourselves “what the hell did I
During my conversation with Grace Yukich that I posted a few weeks ago, we discussed the different type of goals she sets for her writing, and how those goals might vary based on the other commitments she is juggling. Our conversation resonated with me, because I know from my work with clients – and
I picked up The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande planning to read it for insights into working with my time management clients. What I found upon reading, however, is much to think about for academic writing and editing. In a nutshell, Gawande argues in this book that checklists are one way we make sense
A few weeks ago I conducted an informal Twitter poll asking if writers wrote every day. While most said no, a significant number of respondents said they wished that they did. When I speak to clients about writing, they express the same desire but declare that they don’t write daily because they don’t have enough time. Maintaining a
We are about 5 weeks into the academic summer (apologies if you’re on the quarter/trimester system – you’re summer is just starting). I’m sure many of you started the summer relieved to be done, and excited to start on your writing projects. I’m a big fan of constantly revisiting the goals you set for
You are most certainly under pressure to send things out. You’re aware of your deadlines, you know the consequences of not completing your manuscript, yet you still find reasons to avoid the work. Why? Procrastination is rarely a simple case of laziness. Instead, there is most likely a range of emotions you are feeling
I recently read a blog post on paper versus digital to-do lists. There were quite a few useful suggestions in the article itself and in the comments concerning the benefits of different paper planners, apps, and so forth. I for one love a good to-do list. There is one by my computer every day
Last week when I talked about creating a summer writing plan, I stated that you should ask yourself how long each writing/researching task would take. Well, estimating how long it will take you to complete any particular portion of a project is easier said than done. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible! By looking
Writing plans are essential if you hope to complete projects without pulling your hair out. Yet, when I ask academic writers about their writing plans, I usually hear something along the lines of “finish this manuscript before the deadline.” While that’s an important goal, it certainly isn’t a plan. A writing plan requires much more
Summer is around the corner and you probably are planning to get a lot of writing done. Away from the noise of teaching and administrative work (for the most part), you’re probably looking forward to long periods of time to work on manuscripts that haven’t received attention over the academic year. But going from
What’s the first thing you think when you wake up on a Friday morning? It’s the weekend, finally! Then you might think to yourself, “this weekend is not going to be long enough.” That’s no way to start your weekend. To avoid that feeling of dread, take some time on a Friday afternoon to
As of late, I have been working with a few clients who desire time management consulting or accountability coaching. It makes perfect sense – one of the most difficult aspects of writing is finding the time to do it. Over the course of doing such work, on more than one occasion I have heard
It’s absolutely no secret that one of the biggest obstacles to writing is finding time to write. Suggestions abound for how to find time: set a timer, lock your office door, write at the same time every day, go on writing retreats, assume a new identity and hide out to write (if only there
Summer is a time of lofty goals – you’ll write a book manuscript, submit an article or four, prep new courses, and apply for the grant you’re been thinking about. It is often the case that the earlier you are in your career, the more pressure there is to produce, produce, produce over the
Much of the advice around writing productivity focuses on maintaining a daily practice of writing. For many, a daily practice means either writing for a set amount of time every day, or committing to put a specific number of words to paper. While both of these strategies are useful – and necessary so that you
There have been many times where I have sat to make a daily to-do list and somewhat mindlessly added a list of tasks, with no real sense of what these tasks would result in on a daily basis. I blame this partially on the structure of my planner. It has a calendar and blank note
We have all experienced this moment. You’re in your office, settling in to write, grade papers, or what have you. Suddenly, a colleague strolls in, sits in the chair next to your desk, and begins to chat about, well, you don’t even know what they’re saying because you’re looking at the clock and thinking about