Productivity: Jump-starting your writing and research days
Growing up with academics in the family always made me ponder what the best procedures were so that I could be as productive as my parents or my brothers. We were raised on a multidisciplinary, multi-activity household, where we did arts, science, volunteer work and sports. But for some reason I often struggled with sitting down for hours to write.
It was easy for me to run regressions, create mathematical models or design programs, but during my graduate coursework (especially the PhD), I had a hard time spending long hours writing and in particular, getting started on papers. So I asked two professors at UBC what their technique was to jump-start their day. The question I asked was – what do you do first thing in the morning that allows you to concentrate on academic work rather than on administrative trivia.
One of them indicated that the first thing she did was read an academic paper (book chapter, journal article, etc.) to get her thinking juices started. The other one suggested that she sat down to write. Just wrote for an hour or two, or even three. She got her coffee and sat down to write, and around 11 am she would check email, etc.
Now that I’m spending 60% of my time on campus, my routine is a combination of both of these. I arrive to my UBC office, coffee in hand, and I read at least one journal article. I then write my thoughts on the article (like an annotated bibliography) and, if said article is included in the paper I am writing, I bring those thoughts into the paper. I don’t let anyone interrupt my workflow until after lunch (my office hours are 2:30pm to 3:30pm).
If I am preparing lecture slides, I still read an article or two, and then move on to writing the slide deck. I usually prepare my lecture one day in advance, and on the day-of, I simply go through my slide deck and rehearse once more.
If your primary activity is writing (and/or research, or any activity that requires long, intense periods of concentration), what is your morning routine? How do you jump start your days?
Hi Raul,
I love this topic, especially since I’ve rekindled a childhood activity.
In elementary school I remember writing profusely. I have no idea what I wrote about, nor whether it was any good.
The joy of writing gradually faded away under decades of stress and the demands of work and life.
Under stress, the body produces cortisol, a steroid hormone which is designed to help us survive – the famous flight or fight response.
By learning and practising techniques that balance the nervous system, an amazing thing has happened. I’m enjoying the experience of being in-the-flow. When I transform my stress, I am able to jump into this stream when I write. It almost seems as if the words are pouring out of my pen and onto the page; they come from a place deep inside – the heart. (Yes, initially my writing starts the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper.)
That is the beauty and joy of being in-synch – a wonderful process that occurs when we are not in floundering in the stress zone. Very different neural pathways are activated by the signals which are sent from the heart, along the nervous system to the brain.
This is very interesting indeed! How do I jump start my writing… when I REALLY need to do this (e.g. when my deadline is dangerously close), I refuse to check emails, speak to anyone, do anything else at all before I finish what I need to be writing. But that’s just when I’m desperate! What I normally do if deadlines are in sight but not painfully close is… well, the susal stuff, emails, etc. and then, when deadlines come really close, I just get on with it… It must be something to do with Marianna’s explanation about cortisol, I don’t know, what is certain is that, in my experience, the longer I took to write something, the worse the outcome was. It’s almost like I get dizzy with all the things I want to say and not really making sense as to how and in what order to put them down on paper. Whereas if I am seriously pushed by deadlines, my thoughts somehow organise themselves.
Now, I’m not saying that, if I took a much longer time than what I normally consider to be long (say, one month to write a conference paper), the outcome would not be very good. It probably would… Which is something to think about for the future. At the end of the day, however, our working (writing) styles are very personal. An impatient person such as myself cannot dedicate 6 months to writing a paper, it just does not come naturally to me. Perhaps then academia is not the right industry for someone like me? Something to think about, but not very soon… perhaps when I will REALLY need to 🙂
Ahhh, Academia… I left college teaching decades ago for management consulting and entrepreneurship. I do miss the pure pursuit of knowledge and ideas. Actually free enterprise has been a very creative environment, but different.
Re: productivity, I have always been a night person, even when my schedule calls for me to arise a t 7 a.m. Lately I have been on an early schedule and my productivity has decreased significantly. My most productive time is in the P.M. I have been amused in the business world that morning people seem to be intolerant of night people, whereas night people seem to be more open-minded.