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THE ALL-BUT-DISSERTATION SURVIVAL GUIDE™ -- 1997 (1)
Devoted to practical steps for completing your doctoral dissertation.
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Three Ways to Start Writing When You're Totally STUCK......
By Ben Dean Ph.D.
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Last summer, I ran into a colleague who was utterly blocked on writing a
proposal for a major consulting contract. She's a brilliant woman, a great
writer, and the owner of a small, highly regarded consulting practice.
But she was moving up to a new level of competition with this proposal and
was certain that the established national firms would be fighting for it,
too. She "knew" she wasn't going to get it. Yet she'd never forgive
herself for not trying. She was painfully stuck. And the deadline was just
three days away.
What could she do--right away--to start writing? We had only a few
minutes to talk before her ride to the airport came, so I quickly offered
her three ideas for getting started. Then later that night, I E-mailed
her four more.
Here are the first three......
1. GIVE UP.
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Cut your losses and enjoy the weekend! You don't have to do
it! Winning this contract has no intrinsic meaning except that which you
invest in it. You don't have to write this proposal. If you do write it,
you don't have to win the contract. You don't even have to be a consultant.
None of these is necessary for you to have a wonderful life.
See the paradox? If she can truly give herself permission to consider
giving up, she will have begun to detach from the outcome -- and this, alone,
can release her.
If she will let go of the factors she can't control (the result, who will
win the contract), she'll be freer -- either to walk away or to swing for
the fences...to write a bold, killer proposal.
Does this apply to you?
Absolutely.
No matter who you are, no matter how much you want it, no matter how
desperately you dream of stardom at a major university, you can have a good
life without a Ph.D.
If you deeply realize this, you'll feel less performance anxiety than most
ABDs and new faculty feel (no matter what they tell you). The more you
detach from worry about the destination, the more you'll be fully present
for the journey. And full, detached awareness is a hallmark of the road to
mastery.
2. REFRAME IT.
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Reframe the overwhelming task. Simply list 10 - 20 small steps that will
move you forward. Each step must take less than 15 minutes. It's OK if
they're small steps (e.g., locate Department of Energy report; find contact
person's phone number; decide when to call the contact person; address
envelope; buy stamps). Once you've done that, rank them in the order they
would be done.
At this point, without doing anything more, you've begun to reframe the
task from "overwhelming" to "manageable on a step-by-step basis." At this
point, believe it or not, you've made serious progress.
Now, one at a time, do them. If you have to, just work for 15 minutes at a
time, then stop.
Big tasks can be intimidating and often immobilizing. If you can
identify the component parts of the overwhelming task and work on each part,
one at a time, it won't be so intimidating and will get done.
3. PROCRASTINATE CONSTRUCTIVELY
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Commit to a set amount of time (e.g., 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.). Make a list that
has two columns--one for high-priority "to-do's" and another for
low-priority ones. Do the high priority ones (e.g., revise draft) if you
can.
When you need a break from the heavy-duty work, start on your
low-priority items (simple, clerical tasks that still advance the process,
such as organizing documents and checking references).
When you "procrastinate constructively" you use the time slot you've
allocated in an efficient way. Even when you're not doing high-priority
tasks, you're still using your time in a way that will move you closer
to your goal.
EPILOGUE.
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Want to know what my friend decided to do on that proposal?
She did her best to write it passionately with no regard for outcome and
FedExed it in by the deadline. She later told me that learning to work with
detachment was a huge insight which alone was worth the long weekend.
Then sometime last month she heard the news.
She won the entire contract.
And now she's joyfully--lucratively--doing the work.
THE SECRET...
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An important secret of successful scholarly writing is to know many ways
to start--again and again--no matter how stuck you are, no matter how
much you want to avoid the work. In the next issue of the ABD Survival
Guide, I'll describe some of the other helpful techniques I offered to my
consultant friend.
