May 2024 PNP Roundup
Last Month in Review
Greetings, dear readers!
As we round the corner at the end of May, here are some of my favorite media I’ve consumed over the past month on writing, productivity, and managing all the things. Some of this content is new, some of it is old, but all of it has kernels of wisdom for busy academic writers.
1. These are the Publish Not Perish posts from May, in case you missed any:
How to know when to stop swimming in ideas and take action in your research
3 ways PNP and friends can help you meet your summer writing goals!
Academia has no tolerance for disability, even as academia is disabling in and of itself
2. Did you miss the summer planning party that of Write More, Be Less Careful and I hosted last week?
You’re in luck! Nancy compiled some key takeaways from the event, which you can read here or watch in full below:
Our goal with the planning party was to help you think about how much time you actually have for writing, what your ideal schedule would look like, and what major goals you wanted to achieve. We focused on having a realistic summer of writing that accounted for all those other summertime things you may be doing!
Check it out if you still want to kickstart your summer writing!
3. I've given up the idea that writing requires inspiration and ideal circumstances over the years. Instead, I approach writing as a regular habit, akin to brushing your teeth, where feelings of inspiration are not prerequisites to sitting down to write. By letting go of the romanticized view of writing, we can develop a routine that makes it easier to start writing regularly, even when we don't feel like it.
In this rewind from 2022, I share some techniques to overcome resistance when you just don’t want to write.
Writing When You Don't Want To
I've made an effort over the years to eliminate romance from my writing routine. I used to believe that in order to put words on the page, I needed to feel like writing. As a pre-requisite to starting, I looked for inspiration and motivation. In Bursting the “Writing Should Be Inspired” Balloon
4.
packed a productivity punch into her newsletter this month with To Block, Box, or Both. In this short piece, she outlines two of my go-to strategies for getting things done in reasonable amounts of time: timeblocking and timeboxing (the name “timeboxing” was new to me, but I’ve done this for years).
Timeblocking entails allocating specific chunks of your day to various tasks or activities, ensuring that you have enough time to complete everything you need to do. For example, I use timeblocking to schedule writing time in the morning when I am most fresh and creative, and afternoons for more mundane tasks such as emailing or simple grading.
Timeboxing is similar, but you assign a set amount of time to each task, which helps you stay focused and avoid devoting too much time to one thing. For example, I tell myself I am only going to spend 30 minutes catching up on my emails so that I do not allow the task to consume more time than it truly requires.
In Henry’s post, she contextualizes these two strategies within two common, but seemingly opposite, issues that writers, researchers, and other types of knowledge workers have: allowing too much time for a task or project and underestimating how long a task or project will take.
I highly recommend this post if you need to jump start your productivity with two really effective strategies!
5. I loved this short piece from Anthony Ocampo on what he learned when pivoting from academic to creative writing.
He writes,
The job of the sociologist is to use research to accurately render the human condition. But because it’s a discipline built on studying social problems, “the literature” that centers people of color, queer and trans people, and other marginalized communities also tends to focus on trauma. The field too incentivizes trauma-driven narratives: Sociologists don’t get six-figure research grants, fellowships, and tenure-track jobs to study joy and laughter within marginalized communities.
But the reality remains: Alongside trauma, we experience joy; we laugh. Traditional sociology, in my experience, couldn’t capture the full humanity of the communities I was part of; by design, academia constrained that storytelling. Which is why, out of personal necessity, I turned to creative writing. I wanted to write another kind of literature.
I appreciate when scholars break the mold of academia to find new modes of being and knowing in the world that are certainly enriched by our scholarly perspectives as well.
I love your roundup posts and am honored you shared my time management post in this one! :) So excited to read your writing about your offerings, too, Jenn!