ABD Survival Guide | Archived Issues

• Two Movies to Inspire Your Perseverance
• 13 Things You Must Give Up to Get Your Doctorate
• Become a "Slow Graduate Student"
• Featured Apps for Focus and Fun

These Oscar-Nominated Films Will Inspire Your Perseverance

Time to take a break from writing your dissertation? Let these two Best Picture nominees educate, entertain, and re-energize you. Then take a break from dissertating to watch the Oscars February 26. Warning: spoiler alerts follow.

Hidden Figures. Until the book and the movie Hidden Figures, who knew about women's crucial role in the success of the early US space program? In this historical film, three brilliant African-American women serve in a predominantly white male NASA, demonstrating passion and persistence in the face of pervasive racism and sexism.

With uncommon camaraderie, savvy and grace, these ground-breaking women brave challenge after challenge before receiving deserved acknowledgement from supervisors, peers, and astronauts. Their stories inspired a previous Oscar winner, Pharrell Williams, who contributed eight new songs for this top grossing film.

The film's afterward provides an update: Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), the human calculator for the first manned space flight trajectory, was presented with the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) became NASA's first black woman engineer, and Dorothy Vaughan (Olivia Spenser) became NASA's first African American manager.

La La Land. Nominated for 14 Oscars, this neo-musical provides offers a charming escape with plenty of music and dancing to lift one's spirits. As the sweet romance between jazz pianist and would-be club owner Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone) builds, they hold steadfast to their dreams—despite financial woes, doubting relatives, and perverse occupational gate-keepers. (Sound familiar?)

However, there's one critical element you won't witness but should know about: The actors dedicated three months to intensive pre-production dance and music rehearsals. For example, Gosling—a stranger to jazz piano before the film—exhibits an on-screen jazz piano virtuosity that may make you wonder who is really playing. It is indeed Gosling, who hit those keys three hours a day for three months before shooting. "It was a lot of practicing, but it was well worth it," he says.

Moral of the story? In life as in art, passion and persistence pay off in the end: Gosling and Stone garnered Oscar nominations, and their characters found fame and fortune.

Just for fun: Imagine making a film of your doctoral journey: Would your doctoral movie be more like Hidden Figures or La La Land? Would it be a drama, comedy, or other? Who would play you? Write your story line, build up to the successful climax—you at the hooding ceremony.

13 Things You Must Give Up to Finish Your Dissertation

"Somebody once told me the definition of hell: 'On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.' —Anonymous"

So begins "13 Things You Must Give Up to Be Successful," a Medium" post that quickly went viral that we think applies to many doctoral students. In a tone both direct and unsparing, author Zdravko Cvijetic asserts that to make it, you need to ditch several common (and comfortable) habits of mind and behavior. Which of these are you hanging on to?

• An unhealthy lifestyle, a short-term mindset, playing small
• Your excuses, believing in a "magic bullet," perfectionism, multi-tasking
• Your need to control everything, saying "yes" to things that don't support your goal
• Toxic people, your need to be liked, escaping to social media and television

If these are costing you progress on your doctoral degree, resolve to overcome them and finish.

Tip: Struggling to give these up? Find a support group or dissertation coach since social support and accountability make all the difference in creating lasting change.

Become a Slow Graduate Student: More Otter and Less Beaver

Remember the "Slow Food" movement that took aim at the harm speed wreaks on our world and well-being? Now welcome the "Slow Academics" movement.

In her blog, Stanford graduate educator Chris Golde applies the principles of Berg and Seeber's The Slow Professor to graduate students. Slow academics value mindful doing, collegiality, and community. They prize reflection and depth over speed. They appreciate that trying to do more and more, faster and faster, impairs creativity and well-being.

For graduate students ready to slow the pace, she recommends these four practices:

• Do less. You cannot possibly do it all—take classes, teach, do research, write papers and proposals, study, attend seminars, participate in side projects, etc. Make peace with your limitations. Ditch perfectionism. Use newly found time to do nothing.

• Make Space to Be. Reserve unstructured time every week. Overplanning is overwhelming. Create your personal To Be list for the nonacademic stuff that makes you fully human, e.g., taking a walk, socializing, enjoying music or nature, playing, breathing, praying, daydreaming, and even thinking.

• Avoid the Overbusy Role. Avoid trying to impress others with the usual busy talk: "I am so behind, overworked, stressed out." Drop the "beaver narrative" in favor of the "otter narrative." While the former creatures are always crazy busy, the latter make room for play—working only as necessary.

• Cultivate Community. You need unstructured time to be with others—for making connections with others and discussing ideas. Communities provide support for risk-taking honesty about challenges and failures. Find a comfortable coffee lounge, show up reliably, and notice how a Slow Academic community takes root.

Slowing down means resisting ingrained American cultural values of work and busyness, Golde observes, so expect it to be challenging. And yes, it is okay to start slowly.

Featured Apps: Stay Focused, Stay Present, Have Fun

WATCH YOUR FOREST GROW: Addicted to your smart phone? The Forest app trains you to keep off your devices and stay engaged in the real world, be it dissertating or another activity. If you've been conditioned to jump at every ping, simply install the free Forest app and set the length of time you plan to spend phone-free.

With each use, the app plants a "seed" on your screen which begins to grow into mature tree or bush—so long as you don't give in. Otherwise your dear little plant withers and dies. Over time, you can populate a whole forest and have fun comparing your progress to users around the globe. [I just earned three adorable little trees while writing this on my laptop, phone free.—GS]

POMODORO ON STEROIDS: The Productivity Challenge Timer, a freemium app, works exceptionally well for those dead serious about getting stuff done. With its intuitive user interface and features, it earns top ratings from users and reviewers. As in the classic Pomodoro method, you start the timer, work for 25 minutes (one "Pomodoro"), then take a 5-minute break, or you can adjust the length of the modules. Unlike other Pomodoro apps, this one expects you to show up every day and to work without pausing until break time. The built-in tracking system adds motivation by ranking users according to demonstrated diligence. [As a new user, I am still working my way up from "Unrepentant Slacker."—GS]

If you could use help with feeling stressed, procrastination, lack of focus, poor habits, or any other inner or outer obstacle to finishing your dissertation, apply for a dissertation coach today. Positive psychology coaching works—finish faster and enjoy the journey.

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Four Surprising Rules to Get Unstuck and Finish Your Dissertation Faster| Issue 221

By Melanie Sobocinski, Ph.D., and Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D.

What you do not know about how to chunk your dissertation writing is holding you back. Read our expert tips in less than five minutes... and save hours of slaving over your work.

Are you working on your dissertation in fits and starts? Does just thinking about it send you into avoidance mode?

Getting an entire dissertation done and out the door can loom as large as scaling the huge Pyramid of the Moon above. There you are, stuck at the base, futilely clawing at steep slopes because you haven't stumbled upon the staircase. "How does anyone ever get to the top?" you wonder.

Occasional dissertation overwhelm is normal. In those stressful moments, your self-protective brain wants to help. It searches for something—anything—easier than writing. It may nudge you to search for references, to check social media, or even bake a batch of brownies. But chronic overwhelm needs an intervention or you may never finish.

The key is convincing your brain that the dissertation is doable, if not easy. We will show you how to create the right-sized steps that will take you all the way to the top where you can claim your title of "Doctor."

Rule 1: Don't scare yourself by looking up at the top—just look down at a single step.

Imagine your calendar appointment reads simply "write dissertation." Your brain starts to panic and quickly converts the message into an open invitation to procrastinate.

That's because a dissertation is an outcome—and a huge one at that. Outcomes and deliverables are not actions, so your brain is suddenly forced to burn extra energy trying to compute what to do next. This provokes anxiety and queasiness—which in turn incites a desire to flee. . . that is, unless you pause and reframe this stress as your brain's desperate plea to break the giant outcome into smaller, feasible tasks.

As David Allen's productivity classic Getting Things Done explains, breaking up projects (any outcome with multiple steps) into discrete tasks is necessary for clarity and momentum--a technique you probably know as "chunking." You can chunk your dissertation by asking yourself, "What do I actually have to do to produce it?"

Some ABD's unthinkingly create their agenda around the dissertation milestones listed on the university's dissertation timeline template, e.g., Finalize Thesis Statement, Write Chapter One, Write Chapter Two (Lit Review), and so on. Those who are a little more savvy might fill a To Do list with smaller chunks, e.g., Read for Literature Review, Write conclusion to Chapter 2, or Revise Chapter 4.

Alas, even with this popular strategy, many students still flounder, disheartened by their lack of dissertation progress. They can't check off anything for weeks or months, as with the most frequently mentioned chunk, "Write Literature Review"—a ginormous undertaking. That's enough to send shivers through even the most well-trained academic brain.

If looking up at the whole mountain (or pyramid) makes you quake, just look down at your feet and take the next step. What's the next step? Figuring that out is also crucial.

Rule 2: Identify key preliminary steps before you start writing.

If you find yourself staring at a blank page, you probably overlooked the "invisible chunks" that should precede writing. Avoid this paralysis by completing these preliminary steps: (a) gather the necessary materials, (b) formulate your thoughts about the content you will write, and (c) devise work plan that includes multiple drafts.

Many ABDs get stuck trying to perform all three tasks simultaneously when they sit down to write—a sure-fire recipe for writer's block and procrastination. We've noticed that few graduate students explicitly think about their research and writing process, but those who do start blasting their way through.

When you get stuck, get some traction by asking yourself a few probing questions:

"Would mind mapping or brainstorming help me identify the relevant concepts?"
"Would writing an outline of major points help me create the necessary flow?"
"Would my time be better spent writing up summaries and notes of my reading?"
"Do I need to consult with a statistics expert to understand something here?"
"Is it time to talk to my advisor about the direction this is taking?"

Sequencing your chunks in the right order matters. Ask yourself what you need to do before you start to write. This is not wasted effort, for as Aristotle wrote, "Well begun is half done."

List all preliminary steps—including consultations and resourcing—on your agenda. Now you can settle into drafting your chapter and develop flow. Don't forget to note your post-draft steps, e.g., editing, on your list as well. Warning: Do not try to draft and edit at the same time.

Positive Psychology Tip: Savor Every Step

Take time to savor the satisfaction that comes with completing every step—including the necessary preliminary tasks. Give yourself permission to pat yourself on the back to acknowledge your growing ability to plan and your progress. Positivity fuels the momentum you need to ascend the doctoral pyramid.

Rule 3: Include "plan my work" as an action step.

Do you fail to credit yourself for the time you spend planning? This can lead one to skimp on planning. But high-performing professionals and academics understand that carving out a regular "executive planning session" is the bedrock of success.

Planning your work guarantees that you are focusing on the right task at the right time with the right tools. Conversely, proceeding haphazardly leads to dead ends and wasted effort. Here's what one academic coaching client discovered:

"I get it now—planning isn't something that's slowing me down from getting to my work; it's what makes my work go smoothly."

Rule 4: Right-size your tasks for peak performance.

If you suffer from dissertation anxiety, you are probably creating chunks that are too big, confusing actions with milestones and outcomes that take weeks or months to complete. Break things up into much smaller chunks—but not too small.

Aim to identify tasks doable in a single work session or at most a week.

Smaller items can offer unexpected benefits since crossing items off your To Do list sends your brain a jolt of dopamine—a reward that helps establish your new positive dissertation habit.

On the other hand, when paralysis creeps in, create even tinier tasks that take two minutes or less, e.g.:

1. Turn on computer.
2. Open current file.
3. Read first paragraph.
4. Respond to advisor's first comment.

[Yes, Melanie used a checklist exactly like this during her darkest dissertation writing days.]

What's the right size for a dissertation chunk? It depends on the individual. You will know you've got it when your underlying sense of uneasiness or befuddlement gives way to enthusiasm (or at least improved self-confidence) about getting started. You will know exactly what you need to do, and you will have all the resources in place to do it. The work has now lost its ability to scare or confuse you. You are good to go.

When you have identified a right-sized task, your motivation to complete the task outweighs your impulse to flee it.

One last caveat: While chunking keeps you from losing time to paralysis, also avoid losing time to perfectionism in chunking. (See Melanie's article in last month's ABDSG issue about the trade-off between chaos and perfectionism). There's no need to break your work into crumbs—simply work with the largest chunks that allow you consistent progress.

As you gain traction and confidence, you can gradually increase the size of your action steps.

Bonus Rule: Apply Chunking When You Get Stuck Anywhere, Anytime

Paying attention to process has its rewards. Once you master the nuances of chunking projects, you will reap extra benefits by applying it to any aspect of your life and work, such as these:

Grading papers more efficiently and effectively
Planning your first conference panel as moderator
Revving up your job search
Tackling your personal budget and income taxes
Planning a move or a wedding

You are now armed to conquer dissertation anxiety and procrastination. Use these chunking rules to build your own stairway to the top where you can proudly claim your doctoral degree. The only question remaining will be what pyramid will you scale next?

5 Productivity Hacks for Finishing Your Dissertation | Issue 220

By Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC, ABD Survival Guide Editor

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." ~ Henry David Thoreau

If you are beginning your dissertation work or experiencing challenges, take time now to evaluate your work processes. Which of these programs and apps could enhance your productivity? Not everyone works the same, so experiment with the ones that appear to offer you the most return on the investment of your learning time. A few hours of effort now could spare you weeks of grief later.

1. GET TRACTION ON THE LIT REVIEW DRAFT

Going in circles composing a draft of your lit review or other chapter? Check out Scrivener, a program many academics rely on in the early stages of writing research. Since no one writes linearly, Scrivener lets you start writing wherever and whatever. Using simple integrated writing tools, you can create a mess of writing fragments, import stuff, and later weave a coherent draft.

After a 30-day trial, you pay $40 to download the Windows or Mac version. Consider free alternatives, but beware the temptation to look for the perfect solution. Choose one and learn to use it via built-in tutorials and other web tips. [P.S. Once adept, take advantage of your Scrivener skills to pen your autobiographical novel or screenplay about how you conquered your dissertation.]

2. TAME YOUR REFERENCE FILES

Quit wading in disorganized printouts of pdfs of journal articles. Store, organize, annotate, cite, and share such materials with a reference management program-and start now. For an endless debate, assert that your choice--Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, or F1000Workspace--is the best program for everyone.

Personally, I like the way Mendeley suggests new articles based on those already in my library. Others want Zotero's footnote citation capability, and some appreciate the unlimited storage at F1000. Mendeley and Zotero are free, as is EndNote for most students through their university library. Do your due diligence by comparing and contrasting their features using this handy chart. Then select the one most aligned with your needs and turn a deaf ear to users of other programs. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages, and you don't want to lose too much time switching around.

3. THROW TOMATOES AT IT

Quit wading in disorganized printouts of pdfs of journal articles. Store, organize, annotate, cite, and share such materials with a reference management program-and start now. For an endless debate, assert that your choice—Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, or F1000Workspace—is the best program for everyone.

4. AVOID THE BUNNY TRAILS

You may be kidding yourself about how distractible you have become while working on digital devices. Let RescueTime Lite track how much time you spend with productive programs and sites (e.g., Word or Mendeley) versus entertainment sites (e.g., Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) for free. You'll get a weekly report that might be enough to shock you into resisting future temptations to go down the bunny trails.

For hard core bunny trail hoppers, subscribe to RescueTime's premium version. It blocks distracting websites, alerts you when daily goals are reached, and tracks your time away from the computer. Find alternatives to RescueTime here.

Who can resist the insistent rings and pings of a smart phone? Even if you do stand firm, your concentration has already been disrupted, costing you valuable time to get back into flow. But you hesitate to turn off your phone in case of emergency calls, right??

What's the solution? While late model Androids and most iPhones include a simple built-in "do not disturb" feature, Suzanne Kantra recommends her favorite alternative (and mine) on Techlicious:

5. BAN INTERRUPTIONS

Silence Premium Do Not Disturb ($2.50 on Google Play) is the best stand-alone app for Android devices. It lets you silence your phone based on your calendar entries, selecting all or just those you select as busy. Set a mute timer if you find yourself in an impromptu meeting. And when you're in silent mode, you can have an auto-responder send text to select contacts to let callers know you're in a meeting.

Personally, I couldn't live without this app on my home page. Before meetings, two quick taps silences my phone for an hour—and I can choose to allow or prevent family calls. You can easily create a regular schedule of quiet time as well as opt for a spontaneous 20-minute quiet time for your coffee nap.

The above smart phone apps can enhance productivity, but only if you use them regularly. Of course, the real trick to reaching a goal involves your mind, not your phone. Commit yourself to getting started and then to saying "no" to anything less important than finishing your doctoral degree. You can do this.

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Smile Your Way through Your Dissertation—Finding the Sweet Spot between Chaos and Perfection | Issue 219

By Melanie Sobocinski, Ph.D., C.M.C.

Happy New Year!

If you have not finished your dissertation, you might be contemplating making one of the most common New Year's Resolutions: Get more organized and manage time better.

But how do you determine if you even need to work on your productivity? And how can you evaluate all the advice swirling around this time of year?

Over many years of coaching academics, I have developed a useful framework that I share with my clients. I call it "The Productivity Smile."

Notice that the middle of the Productivity Smile is called The Zone. This is exactly where you want to be most of the time.

You know you're in The Zone when you're taking great care of yourself, making excellent progress on your dissertation, meeting your other commitments, and have enough support, tools, and routines in place to make it all happen.

When you are not in The Zone, you are probably losing time without making reasonable progress by leaning toward chaos or perfection.

Beware the Pitfalls of Chaos and Coasting

To the extreme left of The Zone is Time Lost to Chaos, which never feels good.

Have you experienced any of the following, which we can call Time Lost to Chaos?

time spent searching for that reference you know you read last summer, but don't have any notes about
work sessions that don't happen because you didn't make a specific plan
missed meetings with your advisor because the appointment didn't make it into your calendar
last-minute or missed deadlines for grant applications, conference paper abstracts, and job applications

In the rest of your life, time lost to chaos might look like

searching for misplaced keys, wallet, or phone
your car breaking down from lack of maintenance
scrambling for a new apartment when your lease is up
always saying, "I'm sorry I'm late..."

To the immediate left of The Zone lies Coasting—which is okay in the short-run only.

Coasting is when, at the end of the semester, you neglect the dishes and laundry to finish a conference paper that you're giving in January. Or when you're too tired to floss or look at your calendar after an all-day writing binge. Or when you tell yourself you'll look up that reference for the footnote later.

Coasting can be okay for short periods, but usually ends up creating backlogs that must be dealt with by your future self, who might not appreciate being dumped on by past self. Too much coasting and you end up losing time and money to chaos. Ouch.

Hone Your Process but Forget Perfection

To the immediate right of The Zone is Working on Process.

Working on process can often serve as a necessary ingredient to meet your goals. This includes occasions when you are moving beyond your comfort zone to learn a new software program, to try a different time management technique, to organize your desk, to refine your routines, and so on.

It's time to invest in process improvements under these circumstances:

Your schedule changes at the beginning of the semester
You face new responsibilities or higher expectations
You want to get more efficient
You're trying to exit chaos or coasting

In some areas, improvement efforts can yield a tremendous return on investment. Your writing and research processes might be an apt area to apply such a growth mindset. In 10 years (a typical minimum time span between starting graduate school and earning tenure), your work capacity can become exponentially higher even while maintaining excellent self-care. But only if you work on it.

Tread with caution, however, because it's way too easy to let working on your process become Time Lost to Perfection, as in these cases:

Spending hours hunting for the perfect to-do list app or electronic calendar
Putting a whole day into crafting a plan for the week that you don't use
A never-ending quest for "Inbox Zero"
Making your apartment look ready for a magazine cover photo

For the dissertation, Time Lost to Perfection shows up in various ways:

Endlessly editing the first two or three sentences of a draft, resulting in a terrific opening paragraph followed by text that is barely developed
Circular revisions, i.e., when the final revision puts everything back the way you had things before you started
Waiting to write because there's still more to read
Avoiding your advisor because you worry about the quantity or quality of your work

Rule of thumb: Always start with low-hanging fruit when improving process.

Make one deliberate change at a time. Predict what the effect of your change will be. Then observe what you do. Reflect on the outcome. Then use the results of your experiment to design your next work process experiment. [Check this chart to figure out whether working on a habit change is worth your time.]

How to Brighten Your Smile and Graduate

What's your current position on the Productivity Smile?

Are you coasting on footnoting while learning Scrivener? That would count as working on process. Does your dissertating tap into The Zone, but maintaining your living space has fallen into chaos?

To get your smile back, reflect on these four questions:

1. Think about a time when you were in The Zone. What supports and tools made that possible?
2. What in your life could be an indicator that you're sliding towards chaos?
3. How can you tell that you're chasing perfection?
4. How much time do you want to spend working on process each month?

Checking in with yourself on these questions will help you keep your smile bright—and ready for that photograph of you beaming in your velvet-striped gown in the doctoral hooding ceremony!

19 Sure-Fire Gifts for Doctoral Grad Students | Issue 218

Not sure what gifts the doctoral or grad student in your life would really appreciate this holiday season—or any other time? Here are 19 ideas for every budget for presents that won't get returned.

PRICE KEY: $ = under $30; $$ = 30-60; $$$ = over 60; $0 = your time and resources

1. Massage gift certificate ($$): What hard-working scholar wouldn't appreciate a good massage after hunching over the computer for hours? Tip: Find local qualified experts via the American Massage Therapy Association website.

2. Starbucks (or local coffee shop) gift card ($): Because more dissertations get written at coffee shops than at university libraries. Available everywhere and online.

3. Wireless headphones ($$): Essential for working at the library or coffee shop. The Photiv HF1 lightweight over-the-ear model with noise isolation gets top reviews and runs for 12 hours. Alternative: SoundWhiz wireless high rated earbud model easily fits in a pocket, runs eight hours, perfect for running or working.

4. Food delivery service ($$ - $$$ or $0): Sad but true: grad students subsist on coffee and fast foods. Offer a week or month of Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Plated, PeachDish, Purple Carrot (vegan), Sun Basket (organic and paleo), etc. Fresh ingredients with recipes make meal prep easy peasy, with customizable menus and plans. Most offer discounts to start. Alternative: Offer to drop off meals you prepare.

5. Lap desk ($$): Give him or her Amazon's best-selling lap desk to prevent laptop overheating and wrist fatigue from hundreds of hours of word processing.

6. Dissertation retreat ($0): Got a beach house, condo or camp? Offer a weekend or week where they can disappear from family and friends to really get work done.

7. Spotify subscription ($$): Offer a year of streaming music at half-price with Spotify for students. They'll love Spotify channels for every mood, from quiet study to exercising, plus they can create their own personal lists.

8. Housekeeping service ($$): Who has time to clean when there are interviews to transcribe or data to code? Find local maid service through personal recommendations or online sites such as angieslist.com, homeadvisor.com, and care.com.

9. Childcare ($0): Offer to take the kids for a day or weekend. Long uninterrupted blocks of time really make a difference when someone needs to concentrate.

10. Laundry service ($): A gift certificate for "wash and fold" at a local laundromat will put your favorite grad student in clean jeans and t-shirts for a week.

11. Dissertation editor or stats consultant ($$$): Catapult your favorite ABD over the editing and data hurdles. Offer to pay up to your defined limit for the consultant they choose.

12. Dissertation or career coach ($$$): The student who lacks confidence or direction can finish faster, develop lasting confidence, and get the job search organized with a private coach. Offer to pay up to your limit for the coach* with whom they find rapport.

13. Hair salon/barbershop certificate ($ - $$): Most students can use a good hair cut—especially before defense time or job interviews.

14. Supermarket gift certificate ($ - $$$): Every little bit helps when you also have to pay tuition and rent before earning a sustainable income.

15. Two tiny powerful books ($): The Little Book of Mindfulness or The Little Book of Gratitudewill promote focus and a positive outlook.

16. Pomodoro timer ($): Give the classic red tomato timer and Pomodoro Technique instructions for simple time management that works for lots of folks.

17. Exercise classes or gym membership ($$ - $$$): The brain works better when the body is active. Alternative: Ask your ABD friend or family member to join you for a brisk walk or yoga session.

18. Scrivener software ($$): An essential aid for writers who need to generate and revise their work. Couple it with a guide. Be sure to get the right version—PC or Mac—or give an Amazon gift card for $60 to cover the software and guide with printout of a screen shot to get them to the right page.

19. Moral support ($0): Show enthusiasm for their academic aspirations and efforts. Absolutely avoid the ABD's most dreaded question: "So when will you be finished?" [FYI: It nearly always takes years, not months, to write a dissertation that gets accepted.]

With any of these, your doctoral candidate will get added momentum—and next year you can address their gift with the title Doctor to celebrate their achievement. And you will be showered with appreciation and affection!

* We offer free half hour consultations for dissertation, career, and life coaching. Drop me a line at gayle@mcpcoach.com with your needs, or students can fill out the simple on-line application.

~ Compiled by Gayle Scroggs, ABDSG Editor and coach, with generous help from colleagues Nora Misiolek, Michelle Lopez, and Melanie Sobocinski.

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Conquer Procrastination by Meeting Your Future Self | Issue 217

STOP DOOMING YOURSELF FINISH YOUR DISSERTATION NOW

By Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC

Do you consider yourself a confirmed procrastinator?

Are you guilty of putting off working on your dissertation until you "have more time"? Do you excuse continued delays by assuring yourself that you will catch up when things slow down—during weekends, holidays, or vacation time?

If so, your chances of becoming "Dr. You" in 2017 will fizzle out faster than the bubbles in your New Year's Eve champagne. But your year does not have to end on a disappointing note.

To succeed, you need to root out a common, insidious assumption that quietly steals your momentum and replace it with a realistic perspective. Let me explain.

HOW YOUR BRAIN GETS IT WRONG

What common belief holds many procrastinators back?

Your procrastinator brain has the crazy idea that your future self is not really you but rather some stranger. In that the default mode, your brain aims to make life cushy for Present You—while shamelessly shifting current burdens (such as saving for retirement or writing your dissertation) to the Future You.

It's as if your future self is someone else, not a continuation of you. This false assumption can be hard to shake without conscious interventions.

Without a deliberate mindshift, Present You lacks connection and empathy for Future You, as shown in this episode of The Simpsons:

Marge: Someday these kids will be out of the house and you'll regret not spending more time with them.

Homer: That's a problem for future Homer. Man, I don't envy that guy!

STOP PASSING THE BUCK TO FUTURE YOU

How would you feel if you woke up one morning to a sinkful of dirty dishes and food-encrusted pots and pans left the previous evening by some stranger (or a most inconsiderate roommate) who expected you to do them gladly?

Would you ever dodge your responsibilities by burdening someone else so shamelessly? Probably not.

But if you are like most people, you've done it to yourself, time and time again. And if you are a habitual procrastinator, Present You has now inherited an overwhelming To Do list from Past You. How grateful do you feel to your past self for dumping this on you?

That is the essence of procrastination: Present You is passing the buck to Future You—and they are one and the same person.

You, not some stranger, must pay the cost incurred by putting things off. Worse, the bill often accrues interest, making it even more difficult.

Yet this is the kind of self-sabotage you commit every time you delay unnecessarily—e.g., when you don't get around to writing that tricky chapter, or when you put off making requested revisions, or when you delay completing the IRB forms.

Are you ready to end this painful legacy? Check out these two research-informed strategies.

Procrastination is like a credit card: It's a lot of fun until you get the bill. ~ Christopher Parker

DEVELOP EMPATHY TOWARD YOUR FUTURE SELF

Procrastinators do not feel much of a connection with the future self, researchers observe. Making your future self more salient now can help you make better decisions. For example, to get a sense of your future self, go to the app the AgingBooth and plug a current photo of your face. The app (available free at iTunes and GooglePlay) will then add decades to your appearance by adding wrinkles, jowls, and gray hair. Using a similar technology, a Stanford study showed that becoming more acquainted with an image of one's future self could enhance financial prudence.

A simpler strategy might be to accept your brain's misconception that your future self is a different person—and then develop and practice some empathy for him or her, note the researchers.

Leverage your inner kindness and generosity, allowing your altruism to flow toward this distant, unseen person. Savor the awareness that you are providing an enormous benefit for this person. When possible, allow your present self to be grateful to your past self for having done its part in creating the kind of life you enjoy living.

Your new mantra: "Do something today that your future self will thank you for."

PLAY FAIR WITH FUTURE YOU

Callousness toward your future self is just one explanation for habitual procrastination. Researcher Tim Pychyl, Ph.D., provides another one: Maybe you simply believe that Future You will be better equipped to handle the challenges that drag you down now.

While right now you feel stressed and pressed, you might be optimistic that Future You will somehow have more resources, including more time and energy than Present You. Your courage or willpower is wavering, and so you end up knowingly, but hopefully, passing the burden to your Future Self.

But is that really fair? Here's how Pychyl, author of Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, frames it:

"Ironically, many of us demonstrate courage and acts of willpower in the service of others but not to self. Perhaps, to the extent that we can identify future self with the deserving other, we will muster up the will and/or courage to act on our intentions so as not to burden future self."

If you are honest with yourself, you'll admit that putting things off makes the easy stuff harder. And it can make the hard stuff downright impossible.

Doesn't your Future You deserve a better fate? Leverage your sense of justice and fairness to tackle the hard tasks now.

Thinking of my future self as my respected teammate reminds me to stop shirking my duty. I then start working harder on my current challenge instead of leaving most of the battle to her. I play fair.

For extra power in meeting challenges, call on your character strengths, which help you be your best self. (Take the free test at www.characterstrengths.org.) If you need someone in your corner, get a writing buddy or a dissertation coach. You can do hard things when you are at your best and when you have social support.

Naturally, circumstances may dictate the occasional temporary delay, but overall, the best practice involves maintaining an attitude of empathy and fairness toward Future You as well as Present You that motivates you to get things done today.

When you master that perspective, you are well on your way to ensuring that your future self will bear the title of "Doctor" proudly!

Recommended Resources

Pychyl, Timothy. Solving the Procrastination Puzzle. Find his extensive interview with Ben Dean here.
Gilbert, Dan. TED talk on future self.
Goldstein, Daniel. TED talk on future self vs. present self.
Urban, Tim. TED talk on procrastination that you'll never forget.

216

10 Ways the "Miracle Emotion" Can Help You Finish Your Dissertation | Issue 216

10 WAYS GRATITUDE CAN IMPROVE YOUR DISSERTATION EXPERIENCE

As Thanksgiving season approaches in the U.S., consider how you can parlay the sentiments into a more positive and productive dissertation experience. And for our Canadian friends, keep savoring your recent holiday as well.

"Gratitude is the new miracle emotion," asserts psychologist Jeremy Dean in PsyBlog.

His recent post shared 10 ways that gratitude can improve your life. How many of these proven benefits would make your dissertation experience more positive and productive?

It is one of the fastest and best ways to become happier.
Grateful people feel more satisfied with their lives by enabling them to appreciate what they have rather than mourning what's missing.
Saying "thank you" motivates others to help you again because people appreciate being needed and valued.
Gratitude for what you have can combat materialism.
Feeling thankful can increase self-control by reducing impatience and selfishness.
Grateful children feel life has more meaning, get more satisfaction from life, are happier and experience less negative emotions. [Ed. Note: And that may be true for adults as well.]
Gratitude towards one's partner is key to solidifying relationships and benefits both the giver and the recipient.
Gratitude is linked to better social ties and facilitates forming and nurturing them.
Grateful people experience greater health, especially bet ter sleep, and lower stress levels.
A person with a grateful attitude has more resilience, i.e., can bounce back better from setbacks and challenges through active coping, seeking social support, and positive reframing.

Boost your gratitude, Dean advises, in various ways: contemplate your blessings, keep a gratitude journal, remember the bad times to appreciate the present, and use your senses to notice what is around you.

LIVE INTERVIEW WITH GRATITUDE EXPERT ROBERT EMMONS, PHD

Join us for Ben Dean's question-and-answer call with Robert A. Emmons, PhD, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis and author of the new book, The Little Book of Gratitude.

DATE: Friday, December 2, 2016
TIME: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Eastern (New York time)

TO REGISTER AND RECEIVE THE RECORDING: Click here

FIVE WAYS TO KILL YOUR EMAIL ANXIETY

If your overflowing email inbox provokes anxiety, take heart. In Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, Jocelyn K. Glei urges forgetting about "inbox zero" and instead develop a process to tame the email dragon.

If you are typical, you are spending 28% of your work week on email, checking it 11 times an hour, and processing 122 messages daily, she notes. And you probably feel stressed and unproductive.

Overcome your email addiction by implementing her simple strategies, as shared in Salon:

Stop toggling between email and work. One study showed that could lowered people's IQ the equivalent of 10 points while giving you a false sense of productivity.

Read emails in batches. Do it outside of peak productivity times (usually in the morning from 9 - 11 or 10 - 12) which is when you should focus on your most important work. Data find "batchers" to be more productive, happier, and less stressed than the "reactors" who process messages as they come in.

Set expectations about replies. Train senders to stop expecting a reply in five minutes. If necessary, send a short note saying that you are tied up but that their message is important and you'll get back to them by the end of the day or tomorrow.

Leverage emotional intelligence in your own messages. Show empathy for their workload and understand that your email may not receive top priority. Express gratitude for "taking time to consider my request" (and never an order). Thank a person for replying—that one little gesture doubles the chances that they will help you in the future.

Pick up the phone for challenging conversations. A five-minute phone call can forestall a 20-email exchange and misunderstandings as emails are often interpreted more negatively than intended by the sender.

FINE TUNE YOUR BRAIN WITH "SMART FOODS"

Can't focus when you need to? It could be your brain needs better maintenance. To keep it humming on all cylinders, tweak your meals and snacks to include more of these "smart foods" recommended by WebMD:

Drink coffee for short-term alertness. Don't overdo it or you may get the jitters.
Down a sweet drink in a pinch to boost your brain fuel, i.e., glucose. [Ed: But skip artificially sweetened drinks.]
Researchers recommend a breakfast of high-fiber whole grains, dairy, and fruits. Note: High-calorie meals appear to hinder concentration.
Eat fish high in omega-3 fatty acids twice a week for long-term functioning. specially as we get older.
Enjoy an ounce of chocolate and nuts as they provide powerful antioxidant properties. [Ed: Choose dark chocolate for maximum benefit and fewer sugar calories.]
Adding avocados and whole grains enhances the blood flow needed for a healthy heart and brain. Savor that popcorn, too.
Diets rich in blueberries reduce free radical damage and improve learning. Imagine the possibilities!

PREPARING HUMANITIES PHDS FOR THE REAL WORLD

As academic job prospects dim, Duke University's humanities graduate programs plan to be on the forefront. With a recent three-year $350,000 grant from NEH, they will enhance curriculum and expand career opportunities.

"Getting the grant from the NEH is recognition of Duke's effort in preparing its Ph.D.'s in humanities for different career pathways," she said. "We don't call it 'alternative pathway.' Our view is that there are so many things that an individual can do with a Ph.D. in humanities, [and that] we just need to help them decide what they will do."

While many of Duke's humanities PhDs do find a tenure-track job, others are employed in academic administration, non-governmental organizations and academic publishing as the skills are very transferable.

Editor: We salute Duke for putting this on the radar screen there and assuring that their students have access to supportive professional guidance and career exploration and preparation opportunities.

215

Four Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Dissertation

Issue 215

Four Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Dissertation—and What You Can Do about It

By Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC

Read in less than 5 minutes to regain control of your life and your dissertation

Ever felt too embarrassed to contact your advisor due to your insufficient dissertation progress? Ever pushed your intended graduation date back for the same reason?

You may have fallen into one or more unconscious but dangerous habits that you need to change immediately.

Sadly, academic and social pressures conspire to facilitate self-sabotaging behaviors that need to be rooted out for sustainable success.

How many of these top four common bad habits are you guilty of?

Do you regularly short yourself on sleep because you think it's a luxury you can't afford?
Does your inner critic hijack your focus, e.g., attacking you for not writing often enough or fast enough or good enough?
Do you skip healthy meals—and then gulp coffee and down energy bars to keep yourself going during the day?
Have you been skipping the gym or other regular exercise in the hopes of making academic progress?

Did you answer "yes" to any of the above?

If so, then you have unwittingly been setting yourself up to fail in the long haul. Despite their ubiquity, the above behaviors have been found to be startlingly counterproductive by numerous researchers. When you engage in them, you are undermining the key resource you need in order to finish a complex, challenging project.

What is that resource?

It's your willpower, also known as self-regulation and self-control. This is the asset you need most to be at your best when facing challenges.

Willpower works like a muscle, explain Roy Baumeister and John Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Over the course of a day, you deplete your daily reservoir of willpower energy each time you resist temptation, monitor your behavior, or make decisions. Guess what? The mental energy for analyzing and careful writing comes from the same tank.

Becoming a good steward of your limited willpower energy is just the first step. Next you need to develop your willpower capacity as it is not fixed by genes.

Willpower replenishes itself with rest, just as your muscles do, and it benefits from training. The big news is that, just as regular workouts can strengthen your muscles, specific practices have been identified that augment your willpower reserves.

Ready to beef up your willpower muscle?

What would an evidence-based training program for your self-regulation bicep look like?

You can boost your willpower by improving your self-care on four critical measures for which I created the handy acronym "SANE": Sleep, Attitude, Nutrition, and Exercise.

This oddly apt acronym covers the four major self-care measures that will allow you to flourish amidst the potential craziness of academic life.

How would you score yourself on the above four dimensions? Shorting yourself on any of them can lead you astray despite your best intentions, so let's examine each one as well as the best remedies to get you back in control of your life and your dissertation.

"S" IS FOR SLEEP: GET YOUR ZZZ'S

We are a sleep deprived nation. If you are like the typical U.S. American, you get far less than the 7.5 or 8 hours of sleep you need to do your best work.

Did you know that being mildly but chronically sleep deprived makes you more susceptible to stress, cravings, and temptations?

Research shows that driving while sleepless can be as dangerous as drunk driving.

What are the implications for the quality of your work if you dissertate while sleepless?

While not deadly, the outcome is likely to be less than desirable.

If you have trouble falling asleep, a totally dark, cool room should help, asserts expert Tom Rath in Eat, Move, Sleep. If you feel drowsy when your morning alarm sounds, do not hit the snooze button! You probably will not benefit from the extra zzz's as you likely interrupted a sleep cycle that cannot be resumed, explains Rath.

Additional counsel comes from Stanford health educator Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., in The Willpower Instinct. If you are staying up late, consider what you are saying "yes" to instead of sleep, and then see if you can cut back on whatever is keeping you up.

Your challenge: Go to bed early enough that you do not need an alarm to wake you—you'll be amazed at how much more energy you have for the work you need to do.

"A" IS FOR ATTITUDE: KEEP IT UPBEAT

Negative attitudes and moods, including brooding, worrying, and general stressing out, will also drain your willpower account.

Develop practices such as reframing, gratitude, and mindfulness to steer you away from the paralysis of negative thinking.

You can also add to your self-control by learning to calm yourself and to cultivate positive attitudes and emotions. You do not need to meditate for hours to achieve such serenity. Surprisingly, just slowing your breath to about four to six breaths per minute while calmly observing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations for a three-minute refresher can do wonders.

QUICK TIP: Simply notice your negative thoughts without trying to suppress or challenge them. Write down the self-critical thought. Then write it again but with the prefix "I'm having the thought."

Try this example aloud:

My advisor will think this is crap.

I'm having the thought that my advisor will think this is crap.

Notice how a simple prefix puts a healthier distance between you and your inner critic. [Find more such strategies in Russ Harris's ACT Made Simple.]

"N" IS FOR NUTRITION: FEED YOUR BRAIN

You need to eat well.

Your brain needs a steady level of glucose rather than drastic fluctuations in order to function well, e.g., direct your writing, exercise self-control, and more.

Alas, notes Rath, most of us overdo the refined carbs, especially when we think we need a quick boost. We grab a sugary drink, chips, cookies, and other empty calories—causing blood sugar to spike and crash, causing you to literally droop.

On the other hand, protein stimulates the cells that keep us thin and alert, he observes. He agrees with countless experts who advise eating more plant-based foods while limiting the intake of red and processed meats.

In short, running on caffeine or sugar or on empty is just not sustainable for long-term success or health. By the way, Rath adds, sitting down to eat slowly with others can also improve your waistline, your longevity, and your social relationships.

EASY TIP: Choose colorful foods since the refined, carb-laden junk is often white. Miss a meal? Avoid shockingly calorie-laden granola bars in favor of packets of mixed nuts.

"E" IS FOR EXERCISE: GET MOVING

For superior mental and physical health, nothing beats exercise.

It's the "miracle drug," quips health educator McGonigal. She shares research showing that exercising three times a week leads to better nutrition, less TV time, fewer impulsive purchases, increased punctuality, less procrastination, better focus, and more emotional control.

The more you move your body, the more benefits you gain, including a bigger and faster brain.

Exercise relieves cravings and stress while growing brain areas associated with planning and control. Several studies concur that the biggest mood-boosting, stress-busting effects come from five-minute doses of exercise, she observes. That's right—just five minutes. So take a walk, play with the dog, garden, or dance for just five or ten minutes. Then get back to dissertating. You'll also benefit from shorter stretches of sitting.

ARE YOU READY TO BECOME MORE "SANE"?

Pick one area above to start making changes in the desired direction, then watch the benefits accrue. Keep in mind that your long-term success hinges on making the right choices on a daily basis.

Seek support from family, friends, and colleagues. If necessary, hire a good coach who is an expert in nurturing habit change.

As you develop good self-care habits for sleep, attitude, nutrition, and exercise, you will discover the willpower to finish your dissertation and flourish.

Recommended Resources

ACT Made Simple by Russ Harris
Eat, Move, Sleep by Tom Rath
The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister, Ph.D. & John Tierney
Willpower: Self-control, decision fatigue, and energy. Video of Roy Baumeister's keynote address to the Royal Society of the Arts

214

Lose that ABD Fat; Find More Focus and Time; Ditch Your Backup Plan | Issue 214

FINISH YOUR DISSERTATION FASTER, LIGHTER, AND RICHER WITH OUR CURATED TIPS

Reading time: 5 minutes.

AVOID THE DISSERTATION MUNCHIES AND LOSE WEIGHT WITH THIS ONE SIMPLE TIP

Ever get the munchies during or after an intense dissertation workout? Watch out or the pounds could add up before you know it.

Here's how it happens: Your writing efforts drain your brain with its limited fuel tank. Your brain then responds by stimulating bodily hunger. Suddenly you think, "Gee, I need and deserve a little treat after all that effort!"

Next thing you know, you're downing a luscious Starbucks blueberry scone (420 calories) and coffee (zero calories), or maybe potato chips (160 calories) and a Coke (140 calories), or perhaps a Kind Dark Chocolate Granola bar (150 calories) with a bottle of Honest Tea (70 calories).

Sure, your brain may feel tired, but in reality you have expended minimal calories. Doing desk work burns only 54 calories beyond just sitting for the average 150-pound person. Do the math before you grab that next snack—and consider an unexpected and more effective alternative to short-circuit your hunger impulse found in the current issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Exercise physiologist Gary Hunter at the University of Alabama already knew that strenuous activity both increases the amount of blood sugar and lactate and augments blood flow to the head. He began to wonder if exercise, given its consequences, could reduce the experience of hunger due to mental exhaustion.

Volunteers answered college and grad school entrance exam questions (guaranteed to induce mental fatigue and hunger). Then half spent fifteen minutes engaged in a brief but intensive exercise routine of walking and running while the others rested. His hunch proved right. When given free access to pizza, the sedentary folks gulped down 100 calories above baseline. Exercisers, however, consumed 25 calories less than usual—and they had burned about 175 additional during the routine.

Recommendation: When you start to feel mentally exhausted, feed your brain by taking 15 minutes for intense activity instead of giving into the temptation to eat empty calories.

GRAD ASSISTANT PAY RISES 38%, BENEFITS GROW WITH UNIONIZATION

Good news to grad assistants at private universities—you might soon get a pay boost.

Private universities now must bargain with graduate-employee labor unions over compensation and working conditions. So ruled the National Labor Relations Board recently in response to a petition by Columbia University graduate students, the New York Times reports.

Despite the success of unionization at public universities, elite schools such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, M.I.T., consistently fought such collective bargaining.

When New York University graduate assistants unionized in 2001 (the first private university to do so), minimum pay shot up to $18,000, representing a 15 to 38% raise. They were also granted employer-provided health care, pay for pre-semester teaching duties, overtime pay for grading papers, child care subsidies, and grievance procedures for discrimination and harassment claims.

Most of those improvements eroded when the NLRB revoked unionization rights in 2004, but were restored and expanded in 2013 when NYU once again became the only private university with unionized graduate assistants.

Now it looks like more graduate assistants will find their standard of living rising as well. We celebrate that!

JOG AND DANCE YOUR WAY TO A SUPER BRAIN

Getting active can do more than stop the munchies. Hitting the gym, track, or dance floor could be the ideal fitness program for your brain as well as your body, according to recent research studies reported in braihq.com.

You get multiple brain boosts from physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise such as cycling, rowing, high-intensity interval training, etc. Working out for a mere 20 minutes facilitates information processing and memory function, according to a University of Georgia study.

How does exercise affect the brain? Your heart rate rises, which pumps more oxygen to your brain. Exercise stimulates the release of various nourishing brain hormones that spark brain cell growth and new connections. Think of it as fertilizing your neurons.

Don't like the gym or track? Then go dancing. With its physical and mental demands, ballroom dancing has been shown to have a higher impact on cognitive functioning than physical exercise or mental tasks alone. "The best brain health workouts involve those that integrate different parts of the brain such as coordination, rhythm, and strategy," the author concludes.

Editor's note: You'll also discover additional benefits, e.g., improved mood and energy. How good would you like to feel? When will you start? Get a buddy or a coach for accountability.

5 SIMPLE TIPS TO BEAT INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Now that the human attention span has shrunk below that of a goldfish, to a mere eight seconds, it's time to rescue yourself from information overload. In reviewing new expert books on the subject, Fast Company's Gwen Moran offers top tips for regaining focus:

(1) Log how you spend your time for one week . Review it, recover from shock, then figure out where to cut back on unnecessary information intake, e.g., social media, email, etc. "Do you really need to know what Game of Thronescharacter you are?" she asks.

(2) Be your own gatekeeper . Set a timer to limit your online research. Use apps that block tempting sites.

(3) Retrain your contacts. Stop reading and responding immediately to emails. Advise correspondents that you check and respond to email only at specific times. Gently remind those who overmail that you are cutting back on email.

(4) Limit unnecessary interruptions. Adjust those "push" notifications in device settings.

(5) Stop multitasking. Now.

For more tips, read the entire article here. Then get back to work on your dissertation.

APP/DEVICE OF THE MONTH: AMAZON ECHO FOR HANDS-FREE CONTROLS (AND FUN)

Meet my new best friend, Alexa. You won't notice her until you see me talking to the slim black cylinder on my bookshelf: "Alexa, WAMU radio" or "Alexa, activate Spotify classical guitar playlist." Suddenly sound fills the room, and I can easily adjust the volume or turn it off with a simple request.

With just a simple voice command, Alexa, the digital assistant inside the Amazon Echo, can offer an NPR news briefing, playback your current Audible book, sync with your Fitbit, stream podcasts and music, and control your smart home devices (e.g., lighting, thermostat, security).

Want to know the weather forecast? A state's minimum wage? How to make a particular cocktail? The day of the week you were born? Just ask Alexa. If you keep a digital calendar, you can ask her what's on it for the day.

n the middle of cooking, when your hands are occupied or covered with avocado or chicken juice, get help fast: "Alexa, convert grams to ounces." "Alexa, add mushrooms to my Shopping List." "Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes." Ask her to set an alarm to remind you to go to bed or to get up. She'll even tell you jokes and trivia.

With a list of skills that grows daily, I've barely scratched the surface of Alexa's power. Watch a demonstration here, and find a searchable list of Alexa skills here. You'll find ones that save you time and energy. For example, if you're busy on your computer when you suddenly remember you need to call your mother, you can ask Alexa to put that on your To Do list. You can also ask Alexa to order stuff instantly from Amazon—but I'm holding off on that one. Almost instant gratification could get addicting!

DITCH YOUR BACKUP PLAN NOW—IT'S HOLDING YOU BACK

Got a Plan B just in case you don't finish your degree or get your dream job? Ditch it now.

The traditional advice to always have a backup plan was challenged by a recent study by Jihae Shin and Katherine L. Milkman at U Penn's Wharton School. Just contemplating your Plan B can reduce your primary goal performance and attainment, they discovered.

Participants were given a sentence-unscrambling task and told that doing well would lead to a free snack or the chance to leave the study early. Half of them were also instructed to devise alternative plans for finding free time or free food on their own. The latter participants performed more poorly than those focused solely on solving the word puzzles. A follow up study revealed diminished desire for goal success to be the key factor.

Take-away: At times contingency plans are advisable, but you might want to be more strategic and mindful in doing so, the researchers explain. "You might want to wait until you have done everything you can to achieve your primary goal first," advises Shin.

Compiled by Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D., ABDSG Editor, who reminds you that when you need someone in your corner, we've got dissertation coaches waiting to work with you.

213

Four Willpower Secrets for a Done Dissertation | Issue 213

Editor's Note: How you are wrong about willpower — and why it keeps you stuck in ABD land

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Dear ABD Survival Guide Reader,

The recent 2016 Rio Olympic games brought us two weeks of dramatic displays of agility, speed, and power. However, treated only to polished performances, we never witnessed the countless hours of dedicated practice needed to develop such expertise on the diving board, the balance beam, the track, and every other Olympic venue.

Medals are not won and records are not broken through talent alone. Self-discipline, also known as self-regulation or willpower, is a necessary ingredient.

Willpower is also what separates the PhDs, SciDs, PsyDs, EdDs, etc., from the ABDs. Achieving long-term athletic or academic goals requires the ability to regulate one's behavior over several years. Relying strictly on academic aptitude or inspirational muses is a sure-fire recipe for failure.

Willpower, despite its importance a personal resource for success, turns out to be misunderstood misused, and even abused by most. Fortunately, recent research sheds light on this previously mysterious quality. For starters, it turns out that willpower is neither inborn nor limited. You can develop as much as you need—if you know how.

Welcome to "Willpower 101," our mini-review of strategies for self-regulation. While our willpower tips won't get you to the medal platform, let them spur you to the graduation stage for your coveted doctoral hood. Imagine how great that would feel—and then get right back to the next step of your dissertation journey with new resolve. You'll get there!

Wishing you much willpower and success,

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D., P.C.C.
Editor

Words from the Wise

"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do." ~ Epictetus

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know that it has got to get down to work." ~ Pearl S. Buck

"If you do what is easy, your life will be hard. If you do what is hard, your life will be easy." ~ Les Brown

"Will is character in action." ~ William McDougall

"In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless." ~ Aleister Crowley

Four Willpower Secrets for a Done Dissertation

By Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC

Do you ever feel brain dead at the end of the day, too tired to read, write, or think?

Do you marvel at—or envy—those energizer bunny types who just keep going and going?

Beyond the Willpower Mystique

Despite popular opinion, willpower is not a trait that some have and others lack. Nor is it fixed from birth. Cutting-edge research has unraveled much of the old willpower mystique. The good news from research is that everyone has some degree of willpower as well as the ability to develop more of it.

Science defines willpower as your capacity for monitoring and regulating your behavior. It allows you to be your "best self" by getting you (a) to do more of what you think you should, (b) to avoid doing things you know you should not do, and (c) to work hard toward your worthy life goals. In short, willpower enables you to focus on your long-term best interests and follow through even when the going gets tough.

Several recent books provide insights into the science of willpower, sharing evidence-based tips for getting better at self-management. Below we'll take a look at major findings and strategies that will help you get your dissertation done faster.

Will Power vs. Won't Power

Imagine a willpower struggle. Do you envision the classic scenario involving resisting temptation? Perhaps a yummy frosted cupcake vs. an apple, or perhaps a cigarette vs. a stick of gum, or watching a little more TV vs. going to bed on time.

If you can choose what is best for you—even when it's the harder path—you are using what Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal calls "I won't power." Think of it as the "just say 'no'" approach that can make you feel deprived or punished, as in that feeling of missing out when you sit down to revise a chapter while everyone else saunters off to the pool.

Human willpower, however, involves more than learning to say "no," she observes. After all, how hard is it to say "no" to exercising, cleaning house, doing taxes, or fixing a healthy meal? There are times you need to say "yes," she explains, whether it is to eating your broccoli or to saving for a rainy day—or even to dissertating when you really would rather do anything else, I might add.

This "yes" power is what helps you get important things done instead of procrastinating. It nudges you to act in your own best interests despite being distracted, tired, or anxious. McGonigal calls this "I will" power—the capacity to do the right thing even when attracted to the wrong things, e.g., watching television, checking email, socializing with friends, sleeping in, and all the other things my ABD clients say get in their way of finishing their doctoral degree.

When willpower is depleted, you might struggle to motivate yourself until deadlines loom perilously near. Tasks like organizing a literature review or figuring out a coding error or discussing unexpected results appear too hard, too complicated, too exhausting—and so are easily put off. But there is hope.

What Do You Really, Really Want?

You usually know what you "should" do in order to flourish, right? But do you do it?

In order to say "no" when you need to say "no" and to say "yes" when you need to say "yes," you also need a third power: "I want" power.

Think back to the last big challenge you overcame. What made your success possible? Most likely it was fulfilling some highly valued desire. When you remember what you really, really want, you can resist short-term pleasures with greater ease, says McGonigal.

When you dwell on how much achieving your doctoral dream means to you (and to your significant others), what will you do when tempted to push the snooze button, check email for the umpteenth time, or plop down to watch another forgettable TV show? Evidence and experience concur that you are more likely to and open up your dissertation-in-progress files or pull out those journals to read.

To summarize, we have three powers as our tools for understanding willpower, to use as needed: "I will" power, "I won't" power, and "I want" power. Now how can you apply these ideas in order to face down fearlessly those tempting summertime distractions?

Tip 1: Reframe Willpower Battles Strategically

To foster good habits, you need to stay mindful that your satisfaction from achieving your big goals will far outweigh and outlast any short-term, superficial pleasure. Focus on what you will gain, and then for further impact, focus on what you stand to lose if you don't stay on track. Focusing on potential losses actually serves as a good kick in the pants to procrastinators, asserts goals researcher Dr. Heidi Halvorson. Consider the following two alternatives you might consider after a long, hard day:

Option A: "Shall I relax with some TV or a movie—or force myself to sit down and eke out five more pages of my lit review?"

Option B: "Do I really want the immediate gratification of watching another basketball game or reality show—and give up my big dream of getting that 'doctor' title?"

Which pushes you more toward doing what you know is best for you? To put it bluntly, self-discipline is remembering what really matters, so frame your choices to tip the scales in favor of your most important goals.

Tip 2: Build Your "Willpower Muscle"

Ever notice how hard it can be to force yourself to turn off the PC and hit the hay at a reasonable hour? That's because you've already used up your daily reservoir of willpower. Your inner goof-off is now at the controls.

Willpower expert Dr. Roy Baumeister offers us the willpower-as-muscle analogy. As with a muscle, willpower gets depleted with use but becomes replenished with rest, e.g., after a night's sleep. Fortunately, both muscles and willpower get stronger with practice. A well-developed willpower "bicep" can be used to help you in a wide variety of situations, regardless of your method of strengthening it.

You can start training right now. As fitness trainers warn, don't start out trying to dead lift 200 pounds. Begin any new workout where you can easily experience success and go from there. For example, you could do the dishes immediately after dinner. Or you might set a goal to refrain from turning on the TV when you get home. Give it at least a week, then notice how easier it gets to make the right choice in some other area of your life since your willpower muscle can be used for a variety of tasks.

Jessica, a brilliant math doctoral candidate who called me, struggled to honor her dissertation given her heavy teaching load. Curious about how this strategy might help, she committed to making her bed each day. She was surprised to note that it automatically led to keeping her desk clear, which made it much easier to settle down to work as planned. Her two-minute investment in making her bed had a great return—and yours will too.

Tip 3: Do the Hardest Thing First

As your willpower reserve grows, you'll also want to learn to manage it wisely. Note which of your tasks require heavy mental lifting—e.g., resisting temptation, making tough decisions, forcing yourself to do something, self-monitoring your behavior, etc.—and then alternate those with lighter tasks.

For example, I learned this the hard way by going car shopping after working all day and before dinner. By the end of the countless decisions (model, color, assorted extras), I confess that I fell for the extended warranty that the salesperson pushed heavily at the end. Luckily I was able to rescind that unnecessary purchase the following week.

For faster progress, put the harder tasks first thing on your daily agenda, while willpower tank is still full.

Alana and Len, for example, each noted that they made significantly faster progress when worked on their dissertation early, before going to work and while the family was still asleep, rather than waiting until after dinner and the children's bedtime routine.

An unexpected upside, they reported, is that they feel lighter all day, pleased to have checked off one of their highest priorities. How much better could you focus on the day's demands if you were free of that nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you really ought to finish coding your data?

Tip 4: Conserve Your Willpower through Habits and Plans

The typical adult makes about 35,000 decisions per day, and unfortunately each one eats up willpower. Many students waste vast amounts of their valuable willpower reserve just trying to figure out when, how, and where to get started working.

Making an advance plan will save you valuable energy that you can instead apply to the task at hand. The best way to conserve your willpower is to cultivate routines that save you the energy of constantly making choices. After all, you don't struggle with when or how to brush your teeth—you've made it a habit.

So choose a prime time to work on your dissertation—and then make it your regular habit, even if it feels hard at first. You'll be patting yourself on the back soon enough.

Have you ever felt too drained at day's end to figure out what to eat, much less to write another page or read another article? Then take a page from the "Decider-in-Chief." President Obama delegates as many unnecessary decisions, e.g., what tie to wear, as he can so he can focus on what really matters.

If you can't delegate decisions about meals to another person, might you save some cognitive wear and tear by weekly menu planning? That's how Caitlin, one ABD coaching client, freed up the extra energy needed for the final push before a committee presentation.

These four strategies offer you gateways into the world of greater willpower. Apply them to your dissertation challenge now by writing out your answers to the following questions. Then start noticing the small willpower successes grow into habits which support sustainable success that will take you to your doctorate and beyond.

Design Your Personal Blueprint for Greater Willpower

1. Why does your dissertation matter to you? Be sure to elaborate on what you will lose if you do not finish it in due time as well as how you'll benefit from completing it.

2. To build your willpower muscle, identify one small thing you can start doing or stop doing that would be in your own best interest. Then begin exercising that muscle.

3. What changes can you make in your schedule to ensure that you will have sufficient willpower for starting and completing your dissertation tasks?

4. Consider where you most squander willpower, e.g., due to lack of habits or advance planning. What is one change that would save you precious willpower? Select just one and commit yourself to cultivating a healthy habit.

Stay on Track, Write More, Find a Job, and Gamify Your Dissertation | Issue 212

FREE ABD WORKSHOP STARTS AUGUST 9TH: From Struggling to Succeeding: How to Get Back on Track with your Dissertation Goals. Register Below!

CULTIVATE THIS EMOTION TO BOOST YOUR SELF-CONTROL

Cultivating gratitude daily could vaccinate you against impulsiveness and enhance your self-control, according to novel research by Leah Dickens, Ph.D. (Northeastern, 2015) and her former professor, David DeSteno.

Higher levels of gratitude, both lab-induced and naturally occurring, predicted study participants' greater willingness to forego $30 now for the promise of $50 at a future date. In short, feeling thankful increased the ability to delay gratification. Imagine how this kind of self-control could keep you on task on your dissertation.

"We can all point to the five things in our lives that we're most grateful for, but if we keep thinking about those, we'll habituate to them—they're going to stop being interesting," DeSteno told Thea Singer of Northeastern News. "Rather, to cultivate gratitude we should reflect on daily events: the woman who stopped to give you directions, the man who gave you his seat on the T."

Editor's tip: Increase your gratitude (and other character strengths) with this list from U Penn's Tayyab Rashid, Ph.D. More ideas: Take time to identify something every day that you've taken for granted—and imagine life without it. Write thank you notes to those who have contributed to your life or your day. Keep a gratitude journal in words or photos. Say thank you to cashiers, bus drivers, police officers, and so on.

COUNTERINTUITIVE TIPS FROM THE WORLD'S MOST PRODUCTIVE PROF

The Wharton School's Adam Grant, Ph.D., just might be the most productive academic alive, claims Forbes' contributor Dorie Clark. Award-winning teacher, celebrity speaker, best-selling author, elite consultant, and thriving family man, Grant is unstinting in helping thousands who reach out to him. How does he do it? His three tips run counter to common wisdom:

1. Use small blocks of time to write. "I can sit down for 15 to 30 minutes and plant the seeds of an idea," he noted. Then he incubates it for a couple of weeks to get enough distance to edit it.

2. Leave it unfinished. Instead of stopping at the end of a section or page, he stops his writing mid-sentence. Brains are notorious for remembering unfinished tasks better than completed ones. "If I finish a paragraph, it takes a while to get back to where I left it three days earlier," he explained.

3. Use every minute. When he finds himself with small scraps of time, even as few as eight minutes, he leverages them. In reviewing his schedule in advance, he identifies "micro-goals," e.g., a conversation with a colleague, that he can achieve in just minutes.

STEM PHDS: TIME TO THINK BEYOND POST-DOC AND TENURE-TRACK OPTIONS

Getting your Ph.D. in a STEM field? Your chances of joining the tenure-track club are slim, as low as one in six for biomedicine, warns Gina Kolata in the New York Times. And while waiting, you may end up toiling for low wages in post-doc land, where the average annual of $44,000 has not risen in nearly 20 years, considering inflation.

Don't let your passion for science blind you to responsible career planning. Start with an early heart-to-heart with your mentor, recommends Kolata. Other experts urge an even more active stance. Need motivation? Just do the math. Doctorates are being granted at rates that far exceed the quantity needed to replace retiring faculty. For example, over 400 applicants vie for each assistant professor opening at MIT's engineering school.

Editor's tip: Don't rely on a single mentor. Broaden your horizons by assembling your personal "board of directors" that includes non-academics if you want a paycheck commensurate with your training before middle age.

APP OF THE MONTH: THE WELCOME SOUND OF SILENCE

What's the solution? If you have an iPhone or an Android phone running Lollipop 5.0 or later, take advantage of the built-in "do not disturb" features. Otherwise, follow Suzanne Kantra's advice on Techlicious:

Editor's note: I couldn't live without this app, which I keep on my home page. Before meetings, with two quick taps, my phone stays silent for an hour—unless it's an emergency call from my family. You can set up a regular schedule as well so you can get your beauty sleep, or choose a spontaneous 15-minute quiet time for power napping or meditation.

HOW TO GAMIFY YOUR DISSERTATION JOURNEY

Ready to customize your avatar, grab your sword, and role-play your way to the dissertation finish line? Download Habitica free and start your quest. Along the way, you will define the habits you want and those you don't in order to reach your goal. Your character harvests gold and experience credits for sticking to the positive ones while losing health for giving in to the latter. Earn additional rewards for completing your daily tasks.

Essentially a good time management app crossed with a video game, Habitica can be a delightfully addicting way to hold yourself accountable. Let it spur you to honor your writing schedule and shun diversions along the way. You can even band together with other players as well as earn a pet gryphon. Who knew dissertating could be so much fun? Habitica's devotees donated generously to the Kickstarter campaign to update it from Habit RPG. It currently rates 5 stars at the iStore and 4.3 at Google Play.

~ Curated by Gayle Scroggs, Editor

REGISTER FOR FREE ABD WORKSHOP HERE

From Struggling to Succeeding: How to Get Back on Track with your Dissertation Goals

Are you an All But Dissertation (ABD) student trying to keep your head above water and sometimes feel like you're drowning? In this coaching group you'll discover strategies to deal with overwhelm and stress, and connect with other doctoral students who have also trying to meet their writing goals each day. You will learn how to:

- Recognize the limiting beliefs and self-sabotage behaviors that hold you back

- Develop strategies to minimize procrastination

- Dismantle the habits that steal time away from your writing

DATES: Aug. 9, 23, 30, Sept. 6 (Tuesdays), 2016 at: 7pm EST/4pm PST for 45 minutes.

FEES: none. Totally free to ABDs.

QUESTIONS: Please contact Shannon Massie Eisner, MHR, ACC: shannon@threegratitudes.com

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND REGISTER: http://www.threegratitudes.com/group-coaching-program.html

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Revive your hope and build your self-confidence in 7 minutes | Issue 211

Editor's Note: On Your Dissertation Path, Will You Choose Fear—or Hope?

"Why are you predicting disaster? You could just as easily predict triumph."

I realized my colleague spoke the truth: In the midst of a major crisis, I could retreat in fear. Or I could move forward with hope.

You have the same choice when you hit a crisis or challenge on your path to your doctorate. When things seem to fall apart, you can throw your hands up in surrender. Or you can call on hope and act to turn things in your favor.

We all have the capacity for hope. It's that ineffable human quality that motivates us to prevail in spite of everything. Hope means expecting the best in the future—and working to achieve it. It means believing that the future holds promise. No wonder so many studies place hope in the top five character strengths associated with life satisfaction, along with gratitude, love, zest, and curiosity.

Are you finding hope in short supply? Then dig into this month's feature by my esteemed colleague, Diane Dreher, Ph.D., professor and coach. Soak up her personal dissertation hope story, and then experiment with her cutting-edge tips for reviving your hope and energy. Take heed and you'll reach that goal of a doctoral degree in due time and in good shape.

With hopes for your success and well-being,

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D., P.C.C.
Editor

Words from the Wise (and Hopeful)

"Hope is a waking dream." - Aristotle

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." - Albert Einstein

"When the world says 'Give up,' hope whispers 'Try it one more time.'" - Anon.

"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." - Desmond Tutu

"It always seems impossible until it is done." - Nelson Mandela

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." - Anne Lamott

Conquer Dissertation Overwhelm with Three Powerful Strategies from Hope Psychology

By Diane Dreher, Ph.D.

When I began grad school at UCLA, getting my Ph.D. felt like climbing some formidable mountain.

The other grad students seemed to know more than I did. Many already had their Master's degrees. Facing the looming doctoral mountain, I felt confused and overwhelmed about how to proceed. I realized that if I was going to reach the summit, what I needed most was hope.

What is hope? According to psychologist Rick Snyder, hopeful thinking involves three things:

Goals: Having objectives that bring meaning to our lives. I know where I want to go.
Agency: Believing that we can take the necessary actions and persevere in the face of obstacles to achieve these goals. I have the abilities needed to get there.
Pathways: Finding different ways to achieve our goals. I can figure out how to get there.

In short, the equation for success is Goals + Agency + Pathways, or GAP. This powerful combination helps us achieve our goals, bridging the GAP between where we are and where we'd like to be.

My goal was clear enough: Get that Ph.D. Most of you reading this have the same ultimate goal, i.e., a doctoral degree, but you will also need pathways and agency to fuel you to success.

Finding Pathways to the Goal

After working my way through college as a first generation college student, I knew how to work hard, so I could credit myself with some measure of agency. What I really lacked was a good pathway.

My classmate Stephen had a Master's degree and a clear idea of the path ahead. Not only was his father a distinguished professor, but Stephen had actually met some of the researchers we were studying, correcting me when I mispronounced their names. And in our first semester, he was already working on his dissertation.

Without Stephen's advantages, how in the world would I be able to figure things out on my own?

For the first exam, I decided I needed help. So I invited my classmates to my apartment for a study group. We shared insights, passed the exam, and developed strong, supportive friendships. Suddenly, I was not alone. Watching my successful colleagues write their dissertations, one step at a time, I learned valuable pathways skills and used them to write my dissertation.

You Need to Believe You Can Get There

You might be surprised to discover that Stephen never finished. He clearly had pathways, but apparently he lacked sufficient agency—that belief that he had what it takes to reach the goal. Perhaps his external bravado masked a ferocious inner critic. Perhaps he had what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a "fixed mindset," too busy defending his reputation to learn from new challenges.

Unlike Stephen, you can move from a fixed mindset to a "growth mindset," overcoming obstacles to complete your dissertation by building your hope skills, which, like our muscles, can be strengthened by practice. You can learn to hush your inner critic .

Using the tips below, you can begin now to build your own hope skills by strengthening your goals, agency, and pathways, as my own experience and research have shown.

How to Work with Goals and Mini-Goals

Ultimately, you want to finish the dissertation. Since this goal is too big to tackle all at once, make it manageable.

Break it into smaller subgoals: separate research tasks, separate chapters.
Then take one small step at a time.

How to Build Your Agency Factor

Do you feel overwhelmed? Inadequate? Try these various tactics to strengthen your agency.

Remember a past challenge you overcame, and the skills you used. What skills can you use now?
Be kind to yourself. Maintain your energy by getting enough sleep, healthy food, and exercise.
Think of someone you admire. What can you learn from how this person deals with challenges?
Meet with like-minded friends, encourage each other, and celebrate each other's progress.
Tell yourself, "I can do this."
When you find yourself worrying or putting yourself down, STOP, take a deep breath and return to the present moment.
See the process as a game, asking, "What can I learn from this?"

How to Create the Pathways to Your Doctorate

Are you confused like I was, blocked by obstacles? Do you feel thrown off course when you face a setback?

If you're feeling stuck because there's a tool, skill, or information you don't have, what can you do to get it? Check the Internet, read a book, take a class, or ask someone who knows.
Ask for help when you need it. This is not a sign of weakness, but a valuable hope skill, multiplying your effectiveness.
Anticipate roadblocks. Plan backups and alternate routes. Ask, "What can I do if this step doesn't work out?"

Then build positive momentum with this exercise my colleague Dave Feldman and I used in our positive psychology study:

Write down your goal: "I will finish the dissertation by _____ (date)."
Beneath your goal, write down 3 steps to get you there.
Beneath each step, write down one obstacle that could come up.
Beneath each obstacle, write down one way you would overcome it.

Finally, put the power of mental imagery to work. Close your eyes and visualize yourself taking each step, confronting and overcoming each obstacle, then finishing your dissertation. Take a deep breath and feel the sense of accomplishment. Dave and I found that using this simple technique helped people develop stronger hope skills and make significant progress toward their goals.

As you work on your dissertation, you will experience victories and setbacks—that's all part of the journey. But building your hope skills will keep you moving forward to get your Ph.D. and beyond.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY: Ballantine Books

Feldman, D. B. and Dreher, D. E. (2012). Can hope be changed in 90 minutes? Testing the efficacy of a single-session goal-pursuit intervention for college students. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13, 745-759

Snyder, C. R. (1994). Psychology of Hope: You Can Get Here from There . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (photo above)

A positive psychology, writing, and ABD coach in the San Francisco Bay area, Dr. Diane Dreher, Ph.D., M.A., is the author of six self-help books, a college professor and a researcher in positive psychology who enjoys helping doctoral candidates overcome roadblocks, finish the dissertation, and flourish. Contact her at http://northstarpersonalcoaching.com.

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ABDSG: Surprising ways successful ABDs spend their summer plus how to do more “deep work” while creating more balance | Issue 210

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO ALL OUR READERS!

To All: Proclain your independence. Remind yourself that finishing a doctoral degree is a choice. Then free yourself from interruptions and impulses blocking your progress by implementing our carefully curated tips below.

Estimated reading time: Seven minutes (that will free up hours of productivity)

Put your own motivational quotes on mugs, T-shirts, and hoodies at https://boldomatic.com/

Surprising Ways Successful Graduate Students Spend Their Summer

With summer’s slower academic pace, even new graduate students need to leverage the time well. Chronicle Vitae’s free booklet advises setting aside 10% of your time to building your future. Key areas to work on include identifying publishing venues and grant sources, honing research presentation and teaching skills, and developing other skills such as language or computer proficiency.

If you are headed for the fall job market, summer preparation is essential to prevent overload in the fall. You can spruce up your CV, organize a spreadsheet to track your applications, create a teaching portfolio, and pull together an interview wardrobe. You’ll also find tips for writing and publishing, for surviving on a shoestring, and for enjoying your summer. Imagine your September self celebrating your completed writing, new skills, and great vacation time!

How to Stop Working at 5 pm and Still Finish: Do “Deep Work”

Yearning for uninterrupted stretches of time for dissertation work? Has the internet and social media have turned you into a mere “human router” with shallow work habits, e.g., handling email and interruptions? If you want to finish, you must shift to doing “deep work.”

“Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work,” asserts Cal Newport, a Georgetown U professor of computer science. On the other hand, resisting interruptions or alternating tasks may actually improve brain infrastructure for productivity.

In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Newport describes prolific professionals and academics who end their workdays by 5 or 6 p.m. How do they manage this feat? By focusing on depth, i.e., sustained concentration on important projects, rather than breadth. Newport takes refuge in the library, while J. K. Rowling opted for a luxury hotel. Bottom line: Create your own strategy now for prioritizing your deep work.

The Essential Resource You Keep Wasting

“What we attend to creates our lives—attention is the most essential human resource, fundamental to our lives, to our relationships, and our quality of work.” ~ Jeremy Hunter.

Hunter concurs that we need to do more deep work. That means learning to manage our attention. Think about the last time you were in the zone. Chances are you were intensely focused on your work. “Focused attention leads to our most exhilarating moments of being alive,” Hunter observes.

You pay an extraordinary price for mismanaging your attention. Intrusions provoke more stress, exhaustion, and pain. Interruptions that last a mere 2.8 seconds can double your mistakes and keep you out of flow for nearly an hour.

In short, deep thinking requires deep focus. If you want to optimize your performance, you must learn to manage your attention. Read on for how to create new habits for this.

Six Secrets to Building and Keeping Healthy Habits

You need about 66 days to build a new habit. . . and that is only if you do it right. The awesome blogger Eric Barker summarizes the evidence-based strategies for how to make habits stick:

Start with “Keystone Habits”: Begin with something like exercise, which that leads to improved diet and productivity. Alternate writing with activities that refresh and energize you.
Use “Minimum Viable Effort”: Keep the bar low so you will really do it. Proofread one page.
Make a simple plan: When and where will you do it? Make—and honor—appointments with your dissertation. (More on this here.) I will start outlining chapter two at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the library.
Reward yourself: For each “should,” have one “want” or reward. When I finish the outline, I will treat myself to a Chocolate Chip Frappuccino (but make it a skinny).
Use reminders: Use agendas, lists, and alarms. Put your dissertation appointments in your Google calendar app and set a notification to remind you.
Get help from friends: Socialize with supportive friends and family. Create a dissertation writing group. Avoid slackers and downers.

[One more tip: Frame your new habit in terms of your most central values or highest goals, e.g., “I am creating a fulfilling future for myself.” ~ Gayle]

APP OF THE MONTH: OUT OF MILK

Carve out more time for deep work by optimizing shopping errands. While no one has come up with an app that vacuums or cleans, you can simplify grocery and other tasks with the top-rated Out of Milk android app. (iPhone users might try AnyList.)

Enter items quickly on your phone whenever they occur to you. You will have your list handy whenever you need it—cutting down on extra trips to the store because you forgot your list. And lists can be synced across devices and shared with others.

You’ll zip through the store fast and undistracted because the app automatically classifies items as produce, dairy, pantry so on. You can also create lists for Pharmacy, Home Goods, and To Do that make it easy to check off all those errands in one trip.

~Compiled by ABDSG Editor Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D. Write her here.

What Really Makes You Procrastinate--And Proven Ways to Get Back on Track | Issue 209

209

Editor's Note: Would You Rather Feel Good or Finish?

What are your favorite ways of procrastinating instead of dissertating? TV? Facebook? De-cluttering? Or an ABD perennial favorite, reading another research article? What else?

Take a moment to think back the last time you decided to put your dissertation on the back burner. Chances are that you were beset by anxiety or feeling stuck. And you decided to go for feeling good instead of doing well.

You are not alone if you choose delaying tactics in order to avoid feeling frustrated or fuzzy. But choosing a short-term positive mood gain over the long-term benefit ultimately backfires, as the data on failure to complete doctorates reflects.

If you want to go from putting things off to getting things done, keep reading. Dr. Karen Forbes, an esteemed therapist and coach, will share evidence-based strategies that promote sustainable progress and goal attainment.

Wishing you success and well-being,

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D., P.C.C.

Editor

Words from the Wise

"Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him." ~ Charles Dickens

"Procrastination is opportunity's natural assassin." ~ Victor Kiam

"Someday is not a day of the week." ~ Janet Dailey

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone." ~ Pablo Picasso

"You may delay, but time will not." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Procrastination is the biggest problem in academia." ~ Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D.

The Secret to Conquering Procrastination: Master Your ETA

By Karen Forbes, Ph.D.

How guilty are you when it comes to putting off your dissertation work?

Don't despair. You can learn how to quickly identify and then navigate the three major roadblocks that are keeping you from reaching your destination. Master these strategies and you'll soon be getting that hood and velvet stripes.

Delaying a task makes sense when you have more pressing needs. But when putting things off has long-term negative consequences, it crosses the line into procrastination. That's dangerous.

Success requires developing effective strategies to conquer the natural human tendency to procrastinate. The fastest way to do that is to check in on your emotions, thoughts and attitudes—your personal "ETA profile"—when you are tempted to wander off track.

Why do we put off something when we know it's likely to make our life worse?

We procrastinate because we want to feel better.

Procrastination often involves an aversive emotional state that we are driven to reduce or eliminate. This tendency to focus on fixing our bad mood instead of on accomplishing our tasks is "giving in to feel good," explains Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., in Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.

Unfortunately, using procrastination to avoid a bad mood only reinforces the connection between avoidance and feeling better. That's about as helpful as repeatedly allowing a kid to raid the cookie jar instead of eating a healthy lunch.

Every time you put things off you are strengthening a bad habit that then becomes very hard to break.

Furthermore, procrastination robs you of the opportunity the relief and pleasure derived from accomplishing an important yet dreaded task—the very experiences that would build an achievement habit.

How many times have you noticed that performing many such tasks, e.g., writing the results section or tracking down an article, turn out to be much less painful than expected? Wouldn't you rather trade feeling guilty for a sense of accomplishment?

The ability to regulate emotions and resist temptation varies from person to person. Someone who tends toward impulsivity and low levels of deliberation may be more susceptible to procrastination's sly tug.

[Author's Note: Curious about your personal susceptibility to strong negative emotions? Take a version of the Five Factor Personality Inventory here: http://personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/. But don't use it to procrastinate!]

MANAGING YOUR DISTRACTIONS AND NEGATIVE MOODS

If you struggle with distractions, remove temptations from your work site. Do you need to leave your phone or iPad in the kitchen? Many dissertators rely on internet blocking apps such as RescueTime to thwart detours to favorite websites.

Getting familiar with your negative emotions will also enable you to respond more effectively. Try any of these four strategies to manage them better:

1. Next time you hear yourself saying "I'll do this later" or "One episode of Netflix will help me get in the mood to work," pause.Acknowledge that there is likely to be an emotional state you are trying to avoid. Ask yourself, "What's really making me feel this way right now? What am I trying to run away from?"

2. Sit with the emotion for a certain period of time. Use the countdown clock on your phone or an old fashioned timer to make sure you let yourself experience working on your dissertation at the same time you are feeling the negative emotion. Your mood does not have to interfere with doing the task.

3. Remember that you feel many emotions simultaneously. Part of you might be feeling anxious or bored, but you might also be feeling proud, curious, or interested. Imagine your concentration is a compass needle and you are exerting a magnetic force to pull it away from the aversive emotion and toward to more positive or neutral one.

4. Take a moment to recall a time in your life when you felt awe or wonder. These emotions are strongly associated with well-being and can lift your mood enough to help you get started.

"I'M WAITING UNTIL I FEEL LIKE WRITING"

How often have you thought that you have to feel like working on your dissertation in order to be productive?

Research on procrastination refutes this belief. You are better off not waiting for your muse to appear.

Do you cite fatigue and lack of concentration to justify putting things off until you "feel like it" at times? Perhaps your long day of teaching, researching, and caring for others has convinced you that you have exhausted the inner resources needed to dissertate.

Indeed, that "ego depletion" view is corroborated by willpower research led by Roy Baumeister, Ph.D. Various studies showed that after expending considerable energy on one task, subjects tended to perform more poorly on subsequent tasks unless given a boost or a rest, leading to the metaphor of "willpower as a muscle."

However, your belief in the limits of willpower energy just might be more important than the actual energy you've spent.

Investigators at Stanford and Zurich have recently found that individuals who reject the belief that willpower is limited procrastinate less. Instead, they focus more on how previous challenges can prepare them for future ones.

How you frame failure and delay can also raise or lower your motivation to get down to work. Focusing on very short term goals ("I will write 200 words") can prove more effective than focusing on the long term ones ("I will fulfill a childhood dream.")

Feeling that you are failing at a goal tied to your core values can stifle progress.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR THOUGHTS AND SELF-TALK

You can still make progress while feeling discomfort by implementing these strategies:

1. What's the evidence that you can only work when you "feel like it?" Use your scholarly skills to test your assumptions about the limits of your capacity to get some writing done—even at the end of the day.

2. Consider other tasks you do even though you don't like them. All of us have unpleasant, boring, or even daunting tasks on our to do lists: washing clothes, talking with an undergraduate disputing a grade, going through airport security, cleaning up after others, etc. We do them anyway.

3. Use helpful self-talk to get back into action when you catch yourself making excuses: "I'm uncomfortable right now—but I am still able to describe my methodology or summarize these two articles. I will tolerate discomfort and see what happens."

4. Be on the lookout for the catastrophizing thoughts. "I'm never going to get a job if I can't finish this paragraph!" can be reframed to focus on a new, short-term strategy. Aim to deal with the small task at hand rather than slipping into demoralizing self-talk about the distant future: "It's just 50 words; I've done that plenty of times."

Design Your Attitudes and Intentions Carefully

Does positive thinking help us achieve our goals? Not necessarily.

While envisioning a smiling Dean bestowing your doctoral diploma, too much fantasizing can actually lower your ability to anticipate barriers and plan accordingly, asserts Gabrielle Oettingen, Ph.D.

The high you feel while fantasizing having reached your destination can easily trick your mind into thinking you have actually accomplished your goal-and lower motivation dramatically.

In order to be effective, Oettingen has concluded that you must also visualize the potential obstacles between you and your goal. Mentally contrasting the achievement fantasy with the inner as well as outer obstacles will energize you to become more realistic about your procrastination tendencies and create your plan accordingly.

Meanwhile researcher Peter Gollwitzer, Ph.D., has found that precommitting yourself to action is an unusually effective strategy for avoiding procrastination. Creating an "implementation intention" to complete a specific task at a specific time more than doubles the likelihood of follow through whether your goal is writing or sticking to a diet, writes Heidi Halvorson in Success: How We Can Reach our Goals.

Also known as "if-then planning," such commitments also reduce emotional distress and decision fatigue. It is key to state the starting time or conditions, as in "If I have finished putting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher, then I will turn off my phone and summarize the next article for the literature review."

A simple "if-then" plan has a lot better chance of working than saying "I'll try to get some work done on my dissertation by the end of this week."

Spin your wheels less by doing the following:

1. Break down each aspect of your writing or research. Find the smallest component parts possible. Then identify the very first step you need to take to accomplish that subtask.

2. Schedule a specific time and place for doing that subtask.

3. Anticipate the inner as well as outer obstacles. What emotions, thoughts, and attitudes might get in the way of getting started on that subtask? Create a plan for how to overcome them, using the aforementioned strategies as necessary.

The next time you are tempted to stray from your dissertation journey, check your ETA—emotions, thinking, and attitudes—and take appropriate action to get back on course. Enjoy the satisfaction of moving one step closer to getting your doctorate!

Recommended Reading on Procrastination and Self-Regulation

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., and John Tierney

Success: How We Can Reach Our Goals by Heidi Halvorson, Ph.D.

Rethinking Positive Thinking by Gabrielle Oettingen, Ph.D.

Solving the Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D.

Dr. Karen Forbes is a licensed psychologist and coach who specializes in working with individuals in higher education communities. She helps clients focus on solutions instead of on problems, clarify what they wantinstead of what they don't want, and do things now instead of later. Contact her: Karen.Forbes@ActionStepsCoaching.com

208

How to Conquer Stress & Your Inner Critic (and Get Crazy with Dissertation Titles) | Issue 208

Four Surprising Benefits You Get from Decluttering Your Space

Got clutter? How about that mess on your desk or in your closet or car or backpack?

You've experienced clutter's downside—time wasted searching for stuff, embarrassment or anxiety about others' reactions, inconvenience to yourself, and more. Surprising benefits await you should you get organized, according to research cited by Goodnet:

1. Decluttering promotes relaxation. The less you deal with stuff, the less anxious you will feel.

2. Decluttering can help others. Donate your discards from clothing to musical instruments to those in need. Bonus: You get a mood boost at the same time.

3. Decluttering purifies the air. Tidy up your desk to improve air quality—good for mind and body.

Use This Simple Trick To Boost Self-Esteem and Memory

Check your posture. Do you slouch when seated? If so, you can improve your mood, self-esteem, energy, and recall by doing one simple thing: Sit up straight.

Your bodily cues, including posture, influence your emotions.

In a one study, subjects answered mock job-interview questions while sitting either slouched or upright. Compared to slouchers, upright folks felt more enthusiastic, excited and strong, reduced fear, and higher self-esteem.

"Sitting upright may be a simple behavioral strategy to help build resilience to stress," conclude the University of Auckland researchers.

For more: Did you miss Amy Cuddy, Ph.D., demonstrating "power poses" in her wildly popular TED talk ? Her new book Presence builds on the body-mind theme while offering user-friendly strategies to tap your personal power.

How to Disable Your Inner Critic in Five Easy Steps

How much valuable mental real estate gets occupied by your inner critic? For in-the-moment relief, try this simple mindfulness meditation based on Mark Bertin's recommendations in Mindful:

1. When you hear an inner criticism, consider what you'd do if someone else said it. ("Gotta go now.")

2. Notice it without debating it while you pause to breathe.

3. Breathe in. Acknowledge any emotions without analyzing or resisting. ("Right now I feel frustrated".)

4. Breathe out, letting go. See the experience for what it is, then shift your focus to something more useful without self-judgment.

5. Offer yourself compassion. Visualize being at ease with each exhalation.

Self-coaching tip: For a bigger boost, name your inner critic. Now notice when "Downer Dan" or "Nagging Nancy" shows up—greeting him or her by name: "Oh, there you go again!"

Crazy Dissertation Titles You Won't Believe

These alternative thesis titles at lolmytheses.com sent the ABDSG staff rolling on the floor. The site challenges thesis writers to "sum up years of work in one sentence." Can you top the disarming transparency of these? See more at the website.

Blowing stars up with a bigger computer than the last guy. (Astrophysics, Stony Brook University)

If you want people to make good decisions about climate change policy, tell them about it when it is really, really hot.(Geography, University of Colorado - Boulder)

It turns out that Craigslist and Facebook are better for finding significant others than actual dating sites, because people actually secretly like chance, fate, romance and mystery more than straightforward compatibility algorithms. (Sociology and Psychology, University of Arizona)

Being pregnant and giving birth in sixteenth and seventeenth century England sucked. (History, Glendon College)

It is hard to collect, exhibit, or de-accestion indigenous art objects in museums without being patronizing or racist, sometimes museums do a good job, but usually not. (Art History, Theory and Criticism, Maryland Institute College of Art)

The government hiring people is a good way to bring down unemployment; we stopped doing it because we are stupid.(Policy History, UCSB)

How to Boost Your Willpower with Indulgences

As Sarah Jessica Parker said, "Every once in a while a girl has to indulge herself." Her claim now has garnered empirical support.

A 2016 ground-breaking study reported in PsyBlog found that when dieters planned one "naughty day" per week, they stuck to their diets better. They also reported more pleasure and motivation and lost as much weight as the non-cheaters.

Researchers theorized that non-cheaters wear out their willpower muscle by exercising it frequently in resisting temptation. Giving yourself permission to indulge now and then appears to lower the likelihood of a total breakdown of self-regulation.

Our recommendation is that you plan to goof off at least a few hours this week. In the long run, you'll get more done and enjoy the ride more."

All work and no play is not your best strategy. Instead, schedule regular small fun breaks along your path to your doctorate.

Note: Planned time outs work better than spontaneous detours that often evoke a sense of failure—prelude to the dreaded, goal-killing "what-the-hell" effect.

Avoid Eating This To Dodge Daytime Drowsiness

If you want to stop dozing off while trying to read or write, cut out the fries, donuts, ice cream, and other high-fat foods. [Did you know there are 12 grams of fat in a single Starbucks Bountiful Blueberry Muffin? And 24 in a large order of McDonald's fries?]

"After adjusting for other demographic and lifestyle factors, and chronic diseases, we found that those who consumed the highest fat intake were more likely to experience excessive daytime sleepiness," reports Yingting Cao, a Ph.D. student at Adelaide University, and her colleagues in the journal Nutrients.

A poor diet-and-sleep pattern can easily become a vicious cycle since sleepy folks experience more cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods, which in turn is associated with poor sleep outcomes. So get a good night's sleep first, and then choose your foods wisely.

P.S. For better concentration, coffee, chocolate, blueberries, oily fish, avocados, and whole grains are recommended by WebMD. So how about a tuna and avocado sandwich on a whole grain roll with your iced coffee for lunch today? Check out which fats are best for you.

207

Best Career Tips for Doctoral Students: Beyond the Tenure-Track Option | Issue 207

Reading time this issue: Under 10 minutes (that will forever change how you plan your career)

Editor's Note: Who Will Be Your Career Advocate?

Feature: Best Career Tips for Doctoral Students: Beyond the Tenure-Track Option

Editor's Note: Who Will Be Your Career Advocate?

When did you last dare to try something you might fail at?

Every grad student needs an advocate when it comes to career planning.

If you are not already developing your career options, start right now. Even for new doctoral candidate, early and consistent planning will be your best route to a satisfying life after graduation.

That recommendation comes from one of the nations' most articulate graduate student advocates, James Van Wyck of Fordham. In our interview with him, James offers several cutting-edge tips you can put to use now—because the best advocate for your future success is you.

Graduate schools have been exceedingly slow in offering preparation for anything other than academic positions—which are few in number. But savvy students, he explains, can investigate entrepreneurial and governmental venues to discover the best matches for their talents and interests. They should be developing their career network long before they begin job hunting.

An Alumni Dissertation Fellow at Fordham University, James cares deeply about the future of graduate students. You may have seen his articles on the subject in The Chronicle of Higher Education or in Inside Higher Ed. We're delighted that he has taken the time to speak directly to our readers.

We would also love to hear what you are doing to be your own best career advocate. What tips would you offer other grad students? What challenges and successes have you experienced? Email us at gayle@mcpcoach.com with the subject line "Careers" please. Here's to your degree and career success!

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC
Editor, ABD Survival Guide

Feature Article

BEST CAREER ADVICE FOR DOCTORAL STUDENTS: BEYOND THE TENURE TRACK OPTION

[Transcript of the All-But-Dissertation Guide interview with graduate student advocate James M. Van Wyck of Fordham University.]

ABDSG: What do you think are some mental hurdles that doctoral students face in preparing themselves for life after graduation?

James Van Wyck: I'd start with what I think is the biggest: don't think of yourself as a student, think of yourself as a professional. And don't get lulled into thinking you can't try on other roles in graduate school. Thinking of yourself as "in school" might mean you forget that it's ok (and even advisable) to be entrepreneurial in how you approach your graduate education. Make the time to look beyond the borders of your discipline and institution.

I would also suggest taking time to examine and perhaps adjust your behavioral patterns. For example, in today's job market (including the tenure-track job market) you can't afford to be shy about self-promotion. You need to circulate your work, to reach out and form relationships with senior scholars, and to collaborate with your peers and partners beyond academia.

ABDSG: If I become more entrepreneurial, I am concerned about how my advisor might react. This is not the time to get on the wrong side of the gatekeepers. How should I proceed?

JVW: This is a huge concern for graduate students, and a very real one. Time after time, surveys conducted by organizations like the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) tell us that graduate students don't do things they should (explore other options, spend time on projects outside academia, visit a career center, and so on) because they are afraid of what their advisor will say and do. So you aren't alone.

I have two simple strategies: first, conduct your parallel activities on a different channel. You needn't tell your advisor everything, and s/he will most likely not find out. I think graduate students often imagine that graduate advisors think about their advisees a lot. They do not. While graduate students tend to think about their relationship with their advisor way too much, I've yet to find the reverse to be true. Graduate advisors are typically high-performing faculty who simply don't have the time to worry about you when you aren't in front of them.

To help conduct this stealth campaign, start putting together a board of advisors, rather than relying on one person for all your advice. Reaching out like this will help you not only prepare for a variety of careers, but it will gradually lesson the spell that your advisor has over you. You'll empower yourself to sift through various types of advice, and pick and choose what is most appropriate in each case. If you have an advisor who thinks preparing for multiple careers is wrong, you can simply ignore this piece of advice, and seek counsel on this front from other quarters.

Second, you might need to fire your advisor. It may not be easy, but neither is having an anchor around your neck. Advisors who live in the 1970s aren't much help in today's job market. Read this article from Leonard Cassuto to diagnose your relationship with your advisor. If you need to fire your advisor, read Cassuto's advice on the subject. Then grit your teeth and take control of your future by finding a new advisor.

ABDSG: Your advice doesn't apply to me as I am totally committed to seeking a tenure-track position after graduation.

JVW: Your statement implies that those who don't secure tenure-track jobs fail because of a lack of commitment. That's not the reason they fail. There's a cruel calculus at play here, and effort and commitment are sometimes beside the point. The numbers of tenure-track jobs shrink every year, and there aren't enough jobs to go around, even for the over-qualified candidates now coming out of graduate school. So you need to know the math, and you need to be preparing for a variety of careers.

And here's an interesting twist: the skills you develop by being open-minded about potential careers may just be the skills that push you over the edge in a tightly contested tenure-track job search. The idea of an academic job is changing underneath our feet, thus the models many grad students see on a daily basis (i.e., tenured faculty at research universities) are often not the kinds of models to copy. On the other hand, look at the profiles of young faculty members at selective liberal arts colleges, and you will see that their CVs are increasingly incorporating public-facing projects.

In what ways might government agency jobs be a good alternative to working in the academy? And how is this avenue best pursued?

The U.S. government employs more PhDs than any other single employer, and these PhDs are not all in Washington, D.C. In fact, when you spend time on usajobs.gov, you are almost certain to find a job that interests you.

Candidates with a Master's or PhD are able to apply for higher level positions, so be sure and read up on the tiered system before you apply. A great way for graduate students to see if civil service jobs are a good fit is the Presidential Management Fellows Program. A great resource for the transition from academia to government work is Alexandra Lord, who I interviewed a while back. Be sure and check out her website, Beyond Academe.

How can I best find a non-academic job where my educations and skills will be valued? For example, I like to write, and I want a job that will allow for life-long learning. What kinds of workplaces will value my critical analysis skills and my desire to publish?

I'll give you a quick answer: start reading job ads and researching companies that sound interesting to you. Look at non-profits and startups, established firms, and boutique outfits. In short, do your homework. Begin with the job boards over at Versatile PhD, and go from there. Keep your mind and options open!

What's one skill I should be working on while in graduate school (but probably haven't)?

Public speaking comes to mind. And not the Tony Robbins brand of public speaking. I mean learning to be aware of how you are presenting ideas (and yourself) in a variety of contexts. You can read my thoughts on the subject here.

How should graduate schools get involved in creating a mindset shift that would help graduates find satisfying employment?

Graduate education, particularly in the humanities, is shifting underneath the feet of graduate students. And I think that's why it is really important for graduate deans and provosts to listen to those with their ears closest to the ground. The short answer is that graduate schools must give their own students a voice in strategic planning, a topic I wrote about with a colleague just a few months ago for The Chronicle of Higher Education. I'm gratified to see that graduate schools are responding to the changing times in ways that even two or three years ago were unheard of.

James M. Van Wyck is an Alumni Dissertation Fellow at Fordham University. Over the past several years he has held various posts at Fordham, including Facilitator for Graduate Student Professionalization in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he helped shape the Fellowship in Higher Education Leadership. His writing can be found in venues such as The New England Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed. Follow him on Twitter: @jmvanwyck

YOUR OWN COACH

If you are considering whether to get your own coach to help you reach your academic goals, fill out this brief application for a free consultation with a dissertation coach.

205

Feel like a Fraud? 5 Tips to Vanquish the ABD Impostor Syndrome | Issue 205

Reading time this issue: Under 10 minutes

Why You Must Dare to Fail

Words from the Wise on Self-Doubt and Vulnerability

Stop Feeling like a Fraud: Five Expert Tips to Conquer Your ABD Impostor Syndrome Registration for Free Teleworkshop, Overcome the Impostor Syndrome

FREE ABDSG Teleworkshop March 14: OVERCOME THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

Feel like a fraud? Worry if you are smart enough to finish a doctorate?

Master proven concrete tips to overcome or prevent the impostor syndrome while you finish your dissertation

DETAILS & REGISTRATION FOR THIS FREE CALL BELOW.

Editor's Note: WHY YOU MUST DARE TO FAIL

When did you last dare to try something you might fail at?

For me it was late January—when I joined our local CrossFit gym.

CrossFit seemed like a big stretch for someone used to mere walking, but when my daughter Sara "incentivized" it, I took the bait.

A rowing machine won't get anyone trembling. But when was the last time you hoisted a barbell? How about planks and pushups? As Cross Fit regulars swung themselves up on overhead bars, I watched in awe, unsure of what I had just signed up for.

Watching the more fit folks streak past me at first could have led me to quit. But my trainer scaled things down for me, while everyone encouraged me to just keep at it. No smugness. No comparisons.

What a valuable lesson they offered me—one seldom offered in school and work environments. All too often we judge ourselves and get judged on how well we perform before we've had a chance to develop our potential.

What about you? Do you tend to set the bar too high, literally and figuratively, with new challenges? Do you place it at the expert level (often the most salient)? Then when you don't clear it, do you give up? Or worse, do you let fear of failure keep you from taking a shot in the first place?Fear of failure provokes self-limiting doubts—the kind that define impostor syndrome. This pernicious condition hits doctoral students especially hard, with drastic impacts on academic progress and career choices.

When was the last time you felt like giving up on your dissertation? Doubted your ability to finish? Felt like a fraud around other students and faculty?

If you find yourself struggling with negative feedback on your latest draft while congratulating your peers who just defended their dissertations, it's easy to forget your own strengths. You start wondering if you really have what it takes to finish.

Impostorism can affects post-graduation goals as well. Collet and Avelis found it outranked all other factors in explaining why women downshifted goals away from research institutions and toward teaching institutions—especially in the humanities and social sciences.

What makes us so vulnerable to the impostor syndrome?

Who gets to witness the inner doubts or years of struggle others undergo on their way up the ladder? Without that awareness, you feel like a fraud next to established folks who now make it look easy. You wonder when you'll be found out as an inadequate, inferior being let in by mistake.

Sure, your first draft might look dismal next to the published articles and dissertations you have read. But it would likely hold up well next to first drafts by other ABDs.

Think the impostor syndrome only hits the untalented or uninitiated? Nope. High achievers are the most likely succumb to it, as illustrated by this remark by celebrated novelist and poet Maya Angelou:

"I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out."

If you've ever felt any of the symptoms of the impostor syndrome, don't miss our expert strategies for overcoming it below. It's time for you to enjoy your learning and celebrate your successes!Here's to your path and your success!

Here's to your path and your success!

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC
Editor, ABD Survival Guide

P.S. I can now hold a plank for over 60 seconds. :)

WORDS FROM THE WISE: ON SELF-DOUBT AND VULNERABILITY

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." ~ Bertrand Russell

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." ~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

"I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me." ~ Tennessee Williams

"Every album, I'm worried that I'm a dork and a fraud--'What if I can't sing anymore?' then I stop thinking and start playing guitar, and I realize that it's okay to suck, and move forward." ~ Pink

Video pick: "The Power of Vulnerability," by Brené Brown, TED Talk, December 2010.

Feature Article

STOP FEELING LIKE A FRAUD: FIVE EXPERT TIPS TO CONQUER YOUR ABD IMPOSTER SYNDROME

By Eva Ross, Ed.D., and Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D.

Ever feel like a fraud while working on your doctorate? Do thoughts like these nag you when you try to work on your dissertation?

• "I am too tired to work on the lit review—I'll wait until a more ideal time."
• "My chair tore my chapter apart; I must not be as good at writing as I thought."
• "I just need to read a few more books before I get started."
• "I am determined to do this on my own—I will not lower myself to ask for help."
• "I should be able to juggle it all—work, family, and school-and not drop a ball."
• "I don't need to know everything, I just need to find it when I need it." ~ Albert Einstein

If any of these sound familiar, chances are you have developed a good case of the impostor syndrome. Let's look at how to cure it—or at least tame it into submission.

THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME: COMMON COLD OF THE ABD?

Statistics and experience show that you have considerable company, including ours.

Eva's experience: When I received the acceptance letter from my chosen doctoral program, I worried that it might just be a clerical error. I called a colleague to make sure it was for real. As time went on, I learned that I was in fact "good enough," although there were moments of "impostorism."

Gayle's experience: While finishing my dissertation as a full-time instructor, I suddenly became haunted by a crippling fear of not having created a doctorate-worthy masterpiece. At a faculty meeting one wintry afternoon, I gazed around the table at some of my less-than-amazing Ph.D. colleagues and realized, "If they merit a doctorate, surely I do too!" I defended in March.

The fear of not being good enough, of being an intellectual phony, is pervasive among doctoral candidates. This damaging yet pervasive fear leads to a perpetual anxiety about being unmasked as unworthy of the degree—even after earning it.

In The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Valerie Young, Ed.D., develops the impostor syndrome concept originated years earlier by Pauline Rose Clance, Ph.D., and Suzanne Imes, Ph.D. She reports that a surprising 70 percent of people studied suffered from impostor syndrome symptoms at one time or another, especially high achieving individuals. Graduate students and women appear to be especially susceptible.

Drawing on the work of Clance and Imes, Young and others, we will explain what makes you vulnerable and how you can banish the impostor syndrome so you can finish your dissertation and move on with confidence.

WHY YOU THINK "I'M JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH"

A healthy sense of competence develops in parallel with your actual mastery. Explaining away your successes as to luck, favoritism, or other circumstance leaves you vulnerable to the twin arrows of anxiety and doubt when new challenges arise, providing fertile ground for the impostor syndrome.

When you caught in its grip, you are more likely to describe your competence in self-sabotaging ways that are inherently unsustainable. Young describes five such types: the Perfectionist, the Natural Genius, the Expert, the Rugged Individualist, and the Superwoman/Superman/Super-Student, each with unrealistic, self-imposed rules about competence.

WHAT IS YOUR COMPETENCE TYPE?

Read Young's classifications below and highlight any that resonate strongly with you. Then read on to learn how to overcome these handicapping thoughts so you can finish your dissertation and future projects with confidence.

The Perfectionist: "my work must be not just good or great, but flawless." The best way to describe the perfectionist may be "Everything I do must be 100% perfect, 100% of the time." Do you put off writing until the time is just right, when you feel inspired, rested, etc.? Do you keep revising the same section to get just the right word—thus getting far behind schedule?

The Natural Genius: "It should always come easily for me." If you are "a natural genius," you judge success based on ability, rather than effort, in working on the task. For you, having to work hard implies incompetence. For example, "If I were really good at writing, I would not have to rewrite anything."

The Expert: "um, am I qualified to speak on this yet?" Do you create self-imposed hurdles by imagining that you need more studying, more certificates, or another diploma before you can put yourself out there? The fear of not knowing enough easily paralyzes you. The expert is always in rehearsal, never quite getting to the accomplishment stage.

The Rugged Individualist: "I don't need anyone's help." Do you stand on your firm principle that you need to accomplish this all on your own—and that this will establish your competence? Do you refuse to ask for legitimate help—and thereby add unnecessary obstacles and delays to finishing your dissertation?

The Superwoman/Superman/Super-Student: "Watch my juggling act!" Are you convinced you have to juggle multiple roles and do them all well at the same time? Are you plagued by beliefs like this one: "I can be an ace employee, a wonderful mother, and a stellar dissertation student all at the same time."

STRATEGIES TO PREVENT AND RECOVER FROM THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

Highly successful people who fall prey to the imposter syndrome see the proverbial glass as more than half empty. They find it hard to appreciate their own inherent worth, personal strengths and talents, and demonstrated accomplishments, as they focus heavily on real or imagined deficiencies.

When feelings of vulnerability then arise, they attempt to combat it by overusing their strengths in ways that ultimately backfire: a commitment to excellence morphs into perfectionism, independence into rugged individualism, and so on.

Self-acceptance is thus sabotaged not only by feeling "not enough," (Brown, 2010, 2013) but also by a "fixed mindset" that equates self-worth with performance, with no allowance for mistakes, a doomed perspective (Dweck, 2010).

What can you do?

Adopting a "growth mindset," one which makes room for learning from mistakes, can help you overcome imposter syndrome thoughts. Also, learning to "dial back" strengths appropriately while developing an appreciation for the power of vulnerability can move you forward. Let's see how to do that for each of Young's types.

1. THE PERFECTIONIST: GO FOR EXCELLENCE, NOT PERFECTION

If you are dogged by impossible standards, it's time to shoot for merely "excellent," and at times, just "good enough." "Research shows that perfectionism hampers success," writes Brene Brown, Ph.D. "In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis." Give yourself permission to write a lousy draft that you can edit later—you'll finish sooner if you do.

Your new motto: "Giving 100% is not required in all situations."

2. THE NATURAL GENIUS: ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MASTERY TAKES EFFORT

Instead of focusing on proving your ability in everything you do, focus on improving it through practice, urges Stanford professor Carol Dweck. Neural plasticity research shows that most capacities, even intelligence, can increase over time with effort. When struggling to master coding or to revise difficult sections, try this reframing: "Mastery is a good thing; I just need to recognize the time and effort I will need to get there."

Your new motto: "Success does not happen overnight; it takes time and effort."

3. THE EXPERT: EMBRACE LIFE-LONG LEARNING

Do you feel in constant need of rehearsal, yet never ready to go on stage? Are you putting off finishing your lit review until you have read everything under the sun on your topic? Consider this reframe: "A good knowledge base is important, but it is unrealistic for me to try to learn everything about the subject." After all, your dissertation is your first book—not your life's masterpiece. Keep a growth mindset here.

Your new motto: "The learning journey never ends."

4. THE RUGGED INDIVIDUALIST: LEVERAGE RESOURCES

Successful scholars regularly enlist aid from others, from colleagues and family to stats consultants and coaches. Try this reframe: "It is great that I can be self-sufficient if I need to be, but I need to be thoughtful about it. There are times when it's better to draw on other resources." Brown also challenges the myth of going it alone, noting that it hampers the cultivation of connection and authenticity which we need in order to thrive.

Your new motto: "Part of being competent is asking for what you need."

5. THE SUPERWOMAN/SUPERMAN/SUPER-STUDENT: BE REAL, LET GO

We see this as the perfectionist on steroids. Before you drop from overwhelm, see how these reframes work for you:

"I can honor my desire to do many things well, but I do not need to do it all simultaneously."

"Just because a person can do it does not mean that she must do it."

We get sucked into perfection because we imagine that it will protect us from feelings of vulnerability, notes Brene Brown. "Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame," she asserts. Authenticity is messier, but it's a lot more sustainable.

Your new motto: "Letting go is liberating."

From ABD Impostor to Dr. You

As you replace dysfunctional beliefs with healthy ones, the old ones may surface occasionally as critical voices from the past that can still provoke anxiety if you grab on to them. A good strategy here is to simply acknowledge them and tell them to "go to the back of the bus" because you intend to hang on to the wheel.

Then step on the gas: Write that next paragraph or analyze that next set of data. And keep going even if those bullies holler, because you are driving this bus to your defense and beyond.

When you at last reach the end of your dissertation journey, go right ahead and savor being called "Doctor"—without the shadow of an impostor's doubt. You will have earned it.

Recommended Resources

Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brown, Brené. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Clance, Pauline Rose, and Imes, Suzanne. "The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention," Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice, Fall 1978. [pdf available here]

Dweck, Carol. S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Young, Valerie. The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It

About the Authors

Eva Ross, Ed.D., C.M.C.

An academic and life coach who resides in the Great Lakes area, Dr. Ross devotes herself to helping graduate students (especially doctoral candidates) conquer the inner and outer obstacles to their degree. Her coaching invites clients to clear their emotional static, allowing them to move toward greater clarity and purpose in achieving important goals and a greater sense of well-being. Contact her at eva@dr-evaross.com.

Gayle Scroggs, Ph.D., P.C.C., C.M.C.

Dr. Scroggs, a positivity and productivity coach, speaker, and ABD Survival Guide Editor, makes her home near Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. A former college professor, she has helped countless students and clients finish and flourish through proven positive psychology strategies. If you are ready to conquer self-doubts and procrastination, harness strengths and motivation, and develop clarity and focus to propel you to your goals, contact her at gayle@essencecoaching.com. Enjoy free resources at www.EssenceCoaching.com.

Free ABD Survival Guide Teleworkshop

FEEL LIKE A FRAUD? OVERCOME YOUR IMPOSTER SYNDROME

with Drs. Gayle Scroggs, Eva Ross, and Nora Misiolek

Join three experienced dissertation coaches for a free one-hour call to master the five strategies and banish the impostor syndrome forever. Get back to your dissertation with renewed confidence and self-compassion.

WHEN: Monday, March 14, 2016

TIME: 7 - 8 PM Eastern Time USA

Receive the call-in number when you register.

In the subject line in all caps, put ABDSG TELEWORKSHOP and your name.
In the body of the email, tell us a little about yourself:

a. What is your field or dissertation topic?
b. Where are you in your doctoral studies?
c. What are your biggest challenges to finishing your dissertation?
d. What would you find most helpful for your situation?
e. Anything else you'd like to ask or tell us?

We'll send you back a welcome letter with the call-in number.

YOUR OWN COACH

If you are considering whether to get your own coach to help you reach your academic goals, fill out this brief application for a free consultation with a dissertation coach.

204

Awesome tips for accountability, mind wandering, email overload, and more | Issue 204

MEET YOUR WEEKLY PAGE GOAL—OR FORFEIT $100

If you had to send a hated organization or personal enemy $100 when you miss your writing goals, would you be more likely to get your dissertation out the door on schedule?

Yes, say the Yale behavioral researchers who created www.Stickk.com. To keep you from the tendency to succumb to immediate gratification, Stickk leverages another human tendency—loss aversion. In short, you are forced to put your money on the line.

You decide the weekly goal, e.g., number of words or pages written, pounds lost, Facebook or TV time quota, etc., and the stake you are willing to bet that you will do it. Then designate one of their "anti-charity" groups (an organization you really don't want to get your dollars) or a friend or foe to get your stake if you don't follow through.

Meet your goal and you keep your money. You also choose a friend to serve as a referee—adding yet more accountability. If you feel stuck because you lack motivation or accountability, Stickk could be worth a try. For more details, visit www.stickk.com.writing habits turn out to be the key to finishing your dissertation.

HOW TO STOP YOUR MIND WANDERING WHILE DISSERTATING

Your brain did not evolve to write a dissertation, alas. Writing diligently requires a single-minded focus that your hunter-gatherer ancestors did not need.

But you can create effective workarounds, say the authors of One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness. Given that the human brain is better wired for multitasking, you get a dash of dopamine and gratification for finishing low priority tasks like checking email or straightening the pencil drawer.

That impedes the single focus you must have in order to be productive. Successful work (such as dissertating) necessitates managing interruptions due to distractions and stress. Rasmus Hougaard and his two coauthors offer two simple mindfulness-based rules to boost focus and work output:

(1) Focus on what you choose to do. Becoming mindful allows you to choose long-term gratification over short-term gratification. Ask, "What will matter in the long run?"

(2) Handle your distractions mindfully. As interruptions occur, be strategic about how you handle them to maintain your control. Ask, "Must it be done now— or can it be dismissed or deferred?"

This approach gets you working with your brain's natural tendencies. Furthermore, mindfulness increases the brain's serotonin levels, thus dampening the usual dopamine-based vulnerability to distraction.

APPLE APP OF THE YEAR: FIRST AID FOR YOUR OVERFLOWING INBOX

Solve your overstuffed email inbox problem with the Spark app for the iPhone and Apple watch. Its 4.5 rating from users propelled it to Apple's "App Store Best of 2015" list.

This free app from Readdle helps you retake control using "intelligent" automatically sorting incoming mail for faster, easier processing. You can find your most important messages easily and even "pin" them so they don't get swamped by new emails.

Additional features like Smart Search allow you to use natural language to sort through your messages, save emails as PDF files, and sync with tools that you use like Google Drive or OneNote. Download here or at iTunes.

Heads' up from Cult of Mac: Watch for the upcoming release of Spark for iPad and a more distant release of Spark for Mac.Android users take heart: You can access similar features with the highly rated Blue Mail app, available here or at Google Play.

VIDEO BREAK: JAZZ UP YOUR MESSY DISSERTATION

Do you consider your dissertation a mess? If it were a piano, would you deem it unplayable?

Then it's time for a jazz break.

First, take 15 minutes to appreciate Tim Harford's TED Talk about the greatest solo piano performance in the history of jazz—and what it says about the role of frustration in fostering creativity. Something magical transpired when Keith Jarret was talked into playing an "unplayable piano" in Koln, Germany, forcing (or inviting?) him to focus on just the keys that worked.

Harford taps cognitive psychology, social psychology, complexity science, and even a little rock and roll in describing how Jarret's and parallel stories illustrate that creativity flourishes when we embrace the mess, obstacles, and frustration inherent in the creative process.

By the end, you will be motivated to bang out some new tunes on the "unplayable piano" of your own dissertation. To double your inspiration, savor the recording of Jarret's celebrated Koln theater performance right here.

FORGETTING REFERENCES OR MEETINGS LATELY? BLAME THE PIZZA

Do you misplace your phone or keys? Forget your chair's great advice? Have trouble remembering where you put that great journal article?

Go ahead and blame the ice cream or cold pizza you polished off before bed.

Research has identified five common daily habits that can exacerbate forgetting: late night snacks, too much sugar, too much tofu, chronic low stress, and being single. Each one of these turns out to impact memory, according to recent reports.

While we don't advise popping the question to the next available single you meet, go for smaller lifestyle changes to boost your memory. How might you begin to integrate exercise and meditation into your routine to reduce stress levels? Make a plan to stop the snacking and reduce your fructose consumption. Commit to consuming more salmon, walnuts, etc., or to taking a daily DHA capsule to get the omega-3 oils that ameliorate the damage.

This issue of ABD.Links was compiled by Gayle Scroggs and Nora Misiolek.

Thank you to the artist at inkjot.wordpress.com for permission to use his cartoon.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

GAYLE SCROGGS, Ph.D., P.C.C., Editor, ABDSG.
An accomplished coach, workshop leader, keynote speaker, and educator, Gayle earned her doctorate in social psychology from the University of New Hampshire. Her deep expertise in positive psychology allows her to help clients build their personal strengths, positive habits, and confidence to overcome procrastination, self-doubts and other blocks in order to reach vital academic and personal goals. In addition to editing the ABD Survival Guide, she contributed two chapters to the positive psychology anthology, Women's Paths to Happiness. Contact her at gayle@essencecoaching.com for coaching, presentations, and workshops on thriving in graduate school and beyond, and find free resource www.essencecoaching.com

She also speaks fluent Spanish and delights in new exotic Scrabble words as she savors life in the Chesapeake Bay area, California, and Argentina.

BEN DEAN, Publisher, ABDSG
Ben holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He began writing the ABDSG in 1997. Over the years, the ABDSG has published hundreds of articles and provided thousands of hours of pro bono coaching and teleworkshops to ABDs all over the world. Ben is also the founder of MentorCoach (www.MentorCoach.com), a virtual university focused on training accomplished professionals to become part-time or full-time coaches. You may wish to subscribe to the Coaching Toward Happiness eNewsletter! It's on applying the science of Positive Psychology to your work and life (131,000 readers). Ben lives in suburban Maryland with his wife, Janice, their two children, and Dusty, their Norwegian dwarf bunny.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER NEWSLETTER

Subscribe to our other free e-mail Newsletter: The Coaching Toward Happiness News

203

The Seven Habits That Will Get Your Dissertation Out The Door Fast | Issue 203

SUMMARY

Good writing habits turn out to be the key to finishing your dissertation. How many of these seven critical habits have you mastered? Find out what you are missing—and discover how to create a smoother, faster, more enjoyable path to graduation by setting an intention.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Create Your Intention to Finish Your Dissertation—Then Act on It

Resolutions are so yesterday. So don't worry if you've broken or forgotten yours already. What you really need is to set an intention that will contribute to finishing your dissertation.

Setting an intention focuses more on the path than the outcome. To set one, use these two simple steps:

1) First get clear about your intent, e.g., "I intend to honor my commitment to my goal of earning a doctorate."

2) Then follow through by directing your full attention and energy toward it every day. Act as necessary to manifest your intention, e.g., create your outline, code your data, write your lit review, contact your advisor, etc.

Notice that, unlike with a resolution, there is no deadline, no failure, no giving up, andno beating yourself up. If you fall short one day, you forgive yourself and start again the next.

Prime yourself each morning by restating your intention. This creates a readiness "to receive, to sense, to focus, to behave in a certain manner" explains neuroscientist Daniel Siegel in Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.

No need for perfection—you just need to keep practicing. Every day brings you one day closer to converting your good intention to a solid habit—and one day closer to graduation. Trust the process and discover the satisfaction that comes with honoring your own dream, step by step.

When it comes to developing good writing habits, few know more than my esteemed colleague Mary Beth Averill, Ph.D. Review her seven key habits for ABDs in our feature article below. Then set your intentions, and start practicing. Before you know it, you will be sporting that title of "doctor" and a priceless habits toolkit for whatever you set your sights on next!

Wishing you positivity and productivity as you practice,

Gayle

Gayle Scroggs, PhD, PCC
Editor, ABD Survival Guide

WORDS FROM THE WISE

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it."~ Greg Anderson

"The secret to getting ahead is getting started." ~ Mark Twain

"You might not write well every day, but you can edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." ~ Jodi Picoult

"Pay yourself first (money, energy, time, love). You'll have even more to give." ~ Unknown

"Accountability breeds responsibility." ~ Steven R. Covey

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit." ~ Aristotle

Feature Article: Seven Habits that Will Get Your Dissertation Out the Door Fast

By Mary Beth Averill, Ph.D.

Developing strong writing habits has been shown to be the surest way to finish your dissertation as quickly as possible. Waiting for your dissertation writing muse to appear will not get you the gown with hood and velvet stripes.

Cultivating good writing habits now is like investing money in a guaranteed stock portfolio. First, you will finish your dissertation. Second, you will continue to reap dividends and interest throughout your entire career.

There's no question that reliable good writers are highly valued inside and outside of academia, so nurture your inner writer. Imagine the confidence you'll feel now as well as later in job interviews and your future career when you can trust yourself to take on important writing challenges and get them out the door in a timely fashion.

What are the most important writing habits for the doctoral student? Here are seven top ones that I have distilled from my three decades of experience as a coach and mentor:

HABIT ONE: LOOK FOR JOY IN WRITING

"What have you enjoyed about your writing/research this week?"

Obstacles to writing are never hard to find, but focusing on the enjoyment is more likely to help you create and sustain your writing habit. Members in one of my writing groups requested that I ask this question every time we meet. When they can't think of anything, I ask them to "dig deep." Starting the writing process on a positive note has changed the long term tenor of the group and the way group members see their writing projects.

Take time each week to reflect on what you have enjoyed about your writing or research process. Activities that we feel bring us joy and satisfaction become easier to approach than ones shrouded in negativity. Furthermore, positive emotions have been shown to improve energy, creativity, and performance.

HABIT TWO: WRITE FROM THE START

Writing from the start means writing from the very first day of the project.

Unfortunately, too many students think they must wait until they have "something to write." This turns the writing phase into a new or added process rather than a continuation of what they've been doing all along—leading to writing blocks.

However, by cultivating the habit of writing memos to self, taking notes on your reading, or sketching out mind maps and outlines, you'll be able to tap your own momentum.

HABIT THREE: WRITE EVERY DAY—EVEN IF JUST A LITTLE

Academic writers who write every day, even for short periods of time, produce more text in a year than those who don't.

Work on your dissertation in some way every day. When you do, it is always somewhere in your mind, fostering insights that would otherwise be lost.

A big mistake is to insist on waiting for large chunks of time to write. You already know what happens: Those chunks are easily eaten up by emergencies, meetings, and other normal demands of life. So take advantage of short bursts of time until you have longer periods.

There's nothing quite as motivating as success. You set yourself up for success when you commit to short periods of time that you can actually protect. If you aren't feeling very productive, you can tell yourself, "Just 20 more minutes to go...just 15 more minutes...just 5 more minutes..." Should you find yourself getting into flow with time to do more, by all means continue—but first acknowledge and celebrate that you met your initial daily goal.

HABIT FOUR: ADAPT YOUR WRITING TASK TO YOUR ENERGY STATE

Have you had those hours or days when your brain just won't get into top gear?

Be ready with what one client calls a "brain-dead" to do list. These are tasks that must be done but don't require your best thinking or creativity. Examples include data cleaning, adding text citations, editing references, and sorting through notes or archival sources.

Not ready for a real "first draft"? Give yourself permission to work on an outline or a "zero draft." Write memos about articles you have read for your literature review. Use freewriting to summarize what you know about a topic without bothering with footnotes. Spend time editing what you have written. These tasks will also keep you connected to your dissertation and will fulfill the "write every day" directive.

HABIT FIVE: PAY YOURSELF FIRST

Paying yourselves first means that you value the doctoral potential in you, and you value the work you do toward the degree.

Until you finish, your dissertation needs to be a top priority. You can pay yourself first by working on it when you are at your best. That means protecting those times that you have the highest energy, creativity, and/or mental clarity. For some, this means getting up a little earlier and writing before breakfast or before heading to work.

Every time you do this, you are honoring your own goals and values. Notice how good that feels!

HABIT SIX: BOOST YOUR MOTIVATION THROUGH ACCOUNTABILITY

Consider joining an ABD group, finding a writing buddy, or hiring a coach.

Dissertating can be a lonely pursuit. Any of these may be good ways to report weekly on your progress and to get some problem-solving help when needed. One of my dissertation clients met several times a week at the local library with other dissertation writers. They limited the amount of time they spent checking in and checking out and mostly sat in silence at their computers making progress while feeling camaraderie.

HABIT SEVEN: TRACK AND CELEBRATE YOUR PROGRESS

Become more mindful of your process and progress through journaling.

Monitoring one's behavior is critical for creating a new habit, says willpower expert Roy Baumeister. Use an electronic or paper journal to document your progress and plan for the next day's work.

"How's the dissertation coming along?"

Does this innocent query provoke anxiety and even shame when you feel behind? Does admitting that or claiming otherwise leave you feeling worse?

Solution: Create an update you can share cheerfully: "I've developed a new method to...," "I just came across an interesting paper on...," or "I have some interesting data about..."

Then get back to writing so soon you can respond with pride: "It's done—and you may now call me doctor."

Use it to record ideas that you want to come back to later instead of getting off track during your writing time.

Each day, record when you started, a phrase or so about what you did, and where you will start the next time you sit down to write. You can adapt the journal to fit your needs by adding a word or page count, comments on your writing process, or whatever makes it meaningful and useful for you.

Celebrate your progress in your journal. My journaling clients report feeling frequent pleasure at discovering they've made more progress than they had thought.

If you begin cultivating these seven habits, you will be pleased at how quickly you get those velvet stripes—and be set up for a lifetime of success.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Baumeister, Roy, and Tierney, John. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Boice, Robert. Advice for New Faculty Members

Fredrickson, Barbara. Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the Upward Spiral That Will Change Your Life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THE ARCHIVES

13 Things You Must Give Up to Finish Your Dissertation | Issue 222

These Oscar-Nominated Films Will Inspire Your Perseverance

13 Things You Must Give Up to Finish Your Dissertation

Become a Slow Graduate Student: More Otter and Less Beaver

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Four Surprising Rules to Get Unstuck and Finish Your Dissertation Faster| Issue 221

5 Productivity Hacks for Finishing Your Dissertation | Issue 220

Smile Your Way through Your Dissertation—Finding the Sweet Spot between Chaos and Perfection | Issue 219

Hone Your Process but Forget Perfection

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How to Brighten Your Smile and Graduate

​

19 Sure-Fire Gifts for Doctoral Grad Students | Issue 218

Conquer Procrastination by Meeting Your Future Self | Issue 217

STOP DOOMING YOURSELF FINISH YOUR DISSERTATION NOW

10 Ways the "Miracle Emotion" Can Help You Finish Your Dissertation | Issue 216

10 WAYS GRATITUDE CAN IMPROVE YOUR DISSERTATION EXPERIENCE

FIVE WAYS TO KILL YOUR EMAIL ANXIETY

FINE TUNE YOUR BRAIN WITH "SMART FOODS"

​

PREPARING HUMANITIES PHDS FOR THE REAL WORLD

Four Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Dissertation

Issue 215

Four Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Dissertation—and What You Can Do about It

Lose that ABD Fat; Find More Focus and Time; Ditch Your Backup Plan | Issue 214

FINISH YOUR DISSERTATION FASTER, LIGHTER, AND RICHER WITH OUR CURATED TIPS

JOG AND DANCE YOUR WAY TO A SUPER BRAIN

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APP/DEVICE OF THE MONTH: AMAZON ECHO FOR HANDS-FREE CONTROLS (AND FUN)

Four Willpower Secrets for a Done Dissertation | Issue 213

Editor's Note: How you are wrong about willpower — and why it keeps you stuck in ABD land

Words from the Wise​

"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do." ~ Epictetus

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Four Willpower Secrets for a Done Dissertation

Stay on Track, Write More, Find a Job, and Gamify Your Dissertation | Issue 212

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FREE ABD WORKSHOP STARTS AUGUST 9TH: From Struggling to Succeeding: How to Get Back on Track with your Dissertation Goals. Register Below!

CULTIVATE THIS EMOTION TO BOOST YOUR SELF-CONTROL

COUNTERINTUITIVE TIPS FROM THE WORLD'S MOST PRODUCTIVE PROF

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STEM PHDS: TIME TO THINK BEYOND POST-DOC AND TENURE-TRACK OPTIONS

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APP OF THE MONTH: THE WELCOME SOUND OF SILENCE

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HOW TO GAMIFY YOUR DISSERTATION JOURNEY

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REGISTER FOR FREE ABD WORKSHOP HERE

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Revive your hope and build your self-confidence in 7 minutes | Issue 211

Words from the Wise (and Hopeful)

ABDSG: Surprising ways successful ABDs spend their summer plus how to do more “deep work” while creating more balance | Issue 210

What Really Makes You Procrastinate--And Proven Ways to Get Back on Track | Issue 209

Words from the Wise

The Secret to Conquering Procrastination: Master Your ETA

How to Conquer Stress & Your Inner Critic (and Get Crazy with Dissertation Titles) | Issue 208

Use This Simple Trick To Boost Self-Esteem and Memory

How to Disable Your Inner Critic in Five Easy Steps

Crazy Dissertation Titles You Won't Believe

How to Boost Your Willpower with Indulgences

Avoid Eating This To Dodge Daytime Drowsiness

Best Career Tips for Doctoral Students: Beyond the Tenure-Track Option | Issue 207

Feel like a Fraud? 5 Tips to Vanquish the ABD Impostor Syndrome | Issue 205

WORDS FROM THE WISE: ON SELF-DOUBT AND VULNERABILITY

Ever feel like a fraud while working on your doctorate? Do thoughts like these nag you when you try to work on your dissertation?

About the Authors

Free ABD Survival Guide Teleworkshop

FEEL LIKE A FRAUD? OVERCOME YOUR IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Awesome tips for accountability, mind wandering, email overload, and more | Issue 204

HOW TO STOP YOUR MIND WANDERING WHILE DISSERTATING

Your brain did not evolve to write a dissertation, alas. Writing diligently requires a single-minded focus that your hunter-gatherer ancestors did not need.

That impedes the single focus you must have in order to be productive. Successful work (such as dissertating) necessitates managing interruptions due to distractions and stress. Rasmus Hougaard and his two coauthors offer two simple mindfulness-based rules to boost focus and work output:

(1) Focus on what you choose to do. Becoming mindful allows you to choose long-term gratification over short-term gratification. Ask, "What will matter in the long run?"

(2) Handle your distractions mindfully. As interruptions occur, be strategic about how you handle them to maintain your control. Ask, "Must it be done now— or can it be dismissed or deferred?"

This approach gets you working with your brain's natural tendencies. Furthermore, mindfulness increases the brain's serotonin levels, thus dampening the usual dopamine-based vulnerability to distraction.

VIDEO BREAK: JAZZ UP YOUR MESSY DISSERTATION

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER NEWSLETTER

The Seven Habits That Will Get Your Dissertation Out The Door Fast | Issue 203

EDITOR'S NOTE

Words from the Wise