Goals for Summer

The Chronicle of Higher Education posted a useful advise column this week about what graduate student should be doing over the summer to get ready for the job market. It is geared more toward the hard sciences, but still has some good advise for social sciences.

How New Graduate Students Should Spend Their Summers by Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong

The short version is this:

• Look for and write grants - even if you have full funding
• Find and study potential journals for your own publications
• Practice talking about your work – start a study group, look for conferences (and apply)
• Prepare for teaching – look for opportunities both in your department and outside (museums, volunteer, internship)
• Reflect and record what you have already accomplished (preparing for your CV)

I have heard over and over from nearly finished doctoral students that they wished they had done these things earlier – especially the publication part. The advice that I keep hearing from new faculty is to craft every major class paper into a publishable article with a targeted journal. Leaving grad school with a track record of publications is a huge benefit.

However, summer is also a time to re-charge, as the school year is often overbooked with TA work, classes, personal research and other jobs. Gradhacker has some advice on how to recharge during the summer.

Setting Goals and Prioritizing

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. ~ Brian Tracy

1. Realize that goal setting is a part of the process of writing.
2. List your project goals.
   • Individual projects that need to be written.
   • Include things with definite deadlines.
   • Include things you would like to get done, but don't have a deadline
   • Post this list near your writing area or in your planner
3. Prioritize
   • What has specific deadlines?
   • How long will something take?
   • Set a due date if something doesn't have one
4. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals for the list.
   • Specific
   • Measurable
   • Attainable
   • Realistic
   • Timely
5. Set a concrete goal for each writing session.
   • Look at your SMART goal
   • Break the project into smaller parts
   • Tackle each smaller part separately

The above information is summarized from:

Silvia, P.J. (2007). How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

There is a wonderful blog post about setting a writing schedule by Megan Crowe here:

Six Steps to a Writing Schedule

Here are two great forms for charting how you are using your time:

Time Management Chart - List all your scheduled items in column one of a day, at the end of the day, write what you ACTUALLY did in column two of that day.

Time Log - Developed by Alan Chapman Consultancy to free style track your daily activities.

This entry as a handout.

Create a Writing Project Chart

If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else. ~ Yogi Berra

Many years ago, I asked my high school students to read  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey.  It is much more approachable and entertaining than Steve Covey's business version, but based on the same seven habits.  I have to admit that I learned a lot by reading and discussing the book with my students.  If you don't know what the habits are, I'll list them here:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Creating and using a yearly writing project chart supports habits 1,2,3 and 7.  As Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else."  In academia there is a lot of writing that needs to be done on specific deadlines - desirable faculty positions,  prestigious journal publications and oodles of money can be lost because of lack of planning and time management.  As a graduate student, the demands tend to be more immediate - weekly thought papers or reflections, semester final papers, and TA/RA related paperwork.  However, if graduate students don't get in the habit of looking at long range plans and deadlines, they will also miss opportunities.  In addition, to create SMART goals that work, the graduate writer needs to recognize the big picture of their goals and projects and design backwards - especially when writing projects have multiple, dependent steps like writing a proposal, getting IRB, collecting data, analyzing, and finally writing!

Creating a yearly writing goals chart had been the topic of several study groups I've attended at professional conferences.  The purpose of having a yearly writing goal chart is to:
1) Have all major deadlines and projects/ideas in one place (to help coordinate with personal events)
2) Have the calender in a visible place as a reminder for projects
3) Plan backwards for all the steps in each project


What should be on the yearly chart?  I've created one for myself that has a list of deadlines and I use sticky-notes to move each project through the steps of publication - but I adjusted this from the one that another professor showed me.  I include: Ideas; Data Collection/Abstract/Outline; Draft/Analysis; Present/Revise; Submit; Revision 1; Revision 2; and Publish.  You can see my early spring chart in the picture. The pink stickies are for papers and the yellow stickies are for presentations.  This whiteboard is on the wall by the door in my office - I am reminded of my projects every time I leave the room.  Yours doesn't need to look like this  - what is most important is to find a method that works best for you.

 I know that writers of all sorts use multiple ways of planning their projects, like the ones below:

Blogs
Organize Your Blog Posts
How To Set Realistic Writing Goals For 2012
Blogging Tip: Create a Blog Calendar--Literally!
Writing and Running
Don’t Break the Chain - Jerry Seinfeld's Method for Creative Success
Writer's Calendar
Writing Romance: Laying out a Writing Calendar
Keeping a Writing Calendar

Initial Meeting - Purpose and Structure

Agraphia – the pathologic loss of the ability to write

The idea of an Agraphia Support Group is founded on the principles expounded by Dr. Paul Silvia, a psychologist and professor of psychology, in his book How to Write A Lot (2007). He contends that, “Writing productively is a skill, not a genetic gift, so you can learn how to do it. This book [group] will show you how to make writing routine and mundane. It presents strategies for writing during the normal workweek, writing with less stress and guilt, and writing more efficiently.” (pg. xi) Being a psychologist, he believes, “Writing productively is about actions that you aren't doing but could easily do: making a schedule, setting clear goals, keeping track of your work, rewarding yourself, and building good habits. Productive writers don't have special gifts or special traits – they just spend more time writing and use this time more efficiently.” (pg. 3-4)

As graduate students, we all have a lot to write – papers for classes, grants for money, proposals for research and articles for publication. Much of the difficulty is in getting started and staying motivated. This support group will not teach people how to write, nor will the focus be on peer editing (though you may find some good contacts). Instead, the group will support you in your goal setting, motivation, and maintaining good writing habits through positive peer pressure.

Group Components:

1. Set concrete, short-term goals and monitor progress of the group

• Each person will need to state a specific, measurable goal
• It will be recorded on a chart
• Next meeting, we will review goals and state whether met or unmet

2. Stick to writing goals during meetings – not other topics

• Meetings should be brief and to the point
• Avoid complaining about teaching, department etc.
• Focus on writing

3. Celebrate real accomplishments, encourage group members when struggling

• Carrot and stick – social (maybe other?) rewards and punishments
• Expect to be held accountable to schedule and goals

4. Graduate students only

• Professors have different needs in writing, plus may be intimidating to students
  
  
  
  
  Specious Barriers to Writing a Lot
  (and how to hurdle them)
  
  
  Excuses that sound like legitimate reasons for not writing, but don't hold up.
  
  
• I can't find time to write.
  1. Allot time to write – make a schedule – write it in your planner
  2. Regularity is more important than # of days or hours
  3. Don't binge write
  4. Guard your writing time – don't let other commitments creep in
  5. Always write during writing time – but enjoy the freedom of writing at other time (windfall writing). Don't cancel a writing time because of windfall.
• I have to a) analyze more b) read more.
  1. Writing is more than typing words.
  2. Use scheduled writing time to:
     1. Crunch stats
     2. Read article (specifically related to writing goal)
     3. Review journal submission guidelines
     4. Fill in grant application (specifically related to writing goal)
     5. Read books about how to write better
• I need a new . . . computer, chair, desk, place, printer, paper, pen . . .
  1. Equipment will not help you write a lot – only a schedule and sticking to it
     1. “In order to write, all a man needs is paper and pencil.” William Saroyan
  2. Looking for the perfect whatever is an avoidance tactic
  3. Fancy doodads can be a distraction – best self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control
• I write when the mood strikes – I write when I feel inspired.
  1. If you are here, it is clear this strategy isn't working :^)
  2. Research has shown that waiting for inspiration doesn't work
  3. You may never feel inspired to write a required piece of writing (grants?)
  4. There are no Muses for academic writing
  5. “Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend to them than inspiration.” Ralph Keyes (2003)

Bottom line: You need to set a writing schedule and stick to it, even if you don't feel like writing.

Homework:

1. Set a writing schedule that you can stick to. Write it in your planner. Begin following it. Be prepared to share how you managed it.
2. List all the writing projects you need to complete. Bring in the list and be prepared to share next time.
   
   
   This entry as a handout.