Category Archives: Guilt

Long ago, I stopped piling books I ought to read on my desk. The stack of books, looming always in my peripheral vision, was vaguely depressing.

In fact, I have a beautiful wall of books. The Future Mister Doctor Jones and I built 70 feet of bookshelves. We paid about $250 for materials and spent several days working on it. I would not have known how to do this on my own. However, now that I have it, I know it is worth that much money and a lot more.

I remember the books I ought to read by consulting a spreadsheet on my computer. I rate each text from 1 to 5—5 being the most exciting and pertinent to my research. I forced myself to make each numbered group about the same size. Working your way through ten urgent texts is not as overwhelming as trying to pick out your next book from a list of 300.

Tonight, I cleaned up my computer desktop, too. For some reason I thought it was okay to save all the .pdfs I want to read in a line, to glare out at me every time I’m on my computer (which I use for work and pleasure). I double-checked that all the articles were on my spreadsheet, and then I put them into a sub-folder in my dissertation folder.

Writing a note to yourself, or placing an object in a prominent place, works well as a reminder only if you’re going to act on it within a day or two. And you’re not going to read ten books in a day or two, I promise you.

It takes work to set up an organizational scheme for research materials—my reading list takes me a couple of days to re-work every year or so. But once you have a place to put these items, it only takes five minutes to put them away after things get crazy. It’s very much worth it to improve your focus while writing.

I recently attended a professionalization workshop and someone did my least favorite thing: they told us graduate students that we should “start last week” on completing a major project.

Sometimes our colleagues seems to use feelings of inadequacy as a crutch–limping toward productive work as they’re chased by demons of what should be done.

The Future Dr. Anderson mentioned this to the Future Dr. Gale (who just defended her dissertation!) about a month ago. She said that people seem to feel that it is expected to freak out and hem and haw about what they should be doing to prepare for a dissertation defense. But isn’t is possible that what one feels like doing while waiting for the defense (nothing) is actually good preparation? Here the Future Dr. Gale was with a near 300-page dissertation, feeling that she actually needed to be packing more potential sources into her head on the off-chance that someone would bring one of them up. (And if memory serves, the Future Dr. Gale got exactly zero questions about literary criticism outside of her own.)

There should be moments in our career where we feel accomplished, on top of things, like we are doing exactly what we should be doing.

Ever wonder why you don’t have self-control?

Unrealistic expectations are public enemy #1 for dissertators. What brilliant mind can withstand 6-10 years of daily failure?

In my experience, setting realistic goals cannot happen in a vacuum. The advice of a dissertation support group, adviser, or friend can help the deflated graduate student pat her herself on the back and take a well-deserved bubble bath.

Receiving precious help does no good, however, if you develop secret goals. Last week, I told my Dissertation Support Group member The Future Doctor Gale that I wanted to read one book and write a draft of a grant application, in addition to preparing for a translation exam. She said that I had ambitious goals, and warned me that they might be too much for a single week. I ignored her advice and made extra, secret goals. I planned to type up a towering pile of notes, organize my desk, and clean out my in-box.

Not too surprisingly, I didn’t accomplish my secret goals or my stated goals. Plus, I felt panicked and miserable. I’m all for dreams and imagination and positive thinking. But indulging in secret fantasies about turning out a perfect chapter in one draft that wins a major award and results in universities offering you jobs before you even apply is going to turn you into the sad, miserable failure that you never had to be.

One of the best things I did this week was stop reading a book that had been on my to-do list for years.

Normally I have a hard time reading a book any way except from start to finish, but this book was just not interesting. I had trouble concentrating on it, and I kept rolling my eyes at the jargon the author was using. It finally dawned on me that it wasn’t interesting to me because it was irrelevant to my project.

My friend The Future Doctor Gale asked me this afternoon as we left a meeting, “Should I go to the talk by the very famous man in my department that everyone else will be going to?” Her gut was telling her that she wouldn’t get much from the talk, but the imagined presence of so many of her colleagues, and the prestige of the speaker, made her doubt herself.

So often in our careers, which run on self-discipline, we get caught up in shoulds and oughts and plans made so long ago they are no longer useful. Today, shove a “should” off your to-do list. Not just for now—this is something that you are never going to do. It feels awesome.