The Academic Writing Course is big on scheduling. Many a module is on the joy of scheduling. I am big on scheduling. We don’t find time or make time to write. Time is not lost down the back of the sofa. We are not a time traveller, or God. The best we can do is schedule time (I hate the phrase manage time, as though it’s an unruly toddler -  you are not chasing time around the living room). 

Scheduling time is thus important to being a happier writer (and a happier academic). You may have noticed that your schedule is presently looking zoom bombed. 

 That is something we need to talk about.

 How do you fill your diary? Do you allow others to simply control it by filling it with endless meeting invitations? Or do you take control, map out your hours and what you will do with them, and then should meetings appear, either you are free or you decline as you are otherwise scheduled.  You do not schedule your work around other people’s meeting whims.

The single biggest hack for becoming a happier writer is taking control of your own diary. It is like magic!

 People who don’t write love meetings because it gives them a legitimate (in their mind) excuse for not writing. If you are a regular academic (not a head of department, dean etc) and you had previously a small x number of meetings per week, there is no reason you should be attending an exponential of that number now. Most ECRs and junior staff generally don’t have weekly administrative meetings (I’m not talking about teaching here), and if you do, you are probably doing  role that is so far above your pay grade you are being exploited.

 Just because other people can’t get their shit together to have one meeting, does not mean you have to become their zoom slave. Meetings without written published agendas are not meetings. They are opportunities to ambush you – don’ fall for it. If it’s critical, they will put it in writing, and you can read it at your leisure. If they have not committed it to writing, they are, variously: using your time to do what is their job; fake consulting you on decisions already taken; or giving you updates on things likely to change next week.

This is the sound of experience you are hearing, not cynicism. 

Time can’t be found, made or managed. But I do believe that time can be wasted and meetings are a classic example. 

Of course, I could suggest tuning in and dropping out as the oldies used to say, but I don’t believe this is a good idea. Be in a meeting, or don’t. If you are in it, contribute. If you have nothing to contribute, then you didn’t need to be there – this is a good early lesson to learn (some people never learn it). When you have tuned in, you have already decided not to write, and that’s a fact, no matter what you do when your camera is off. 

The Academic Coach Writing Course thus prioritises practicing scheduling writing. It is a lot harder for some people to do this than you might imagine. But in these Covid times, I think it’s important to actually practice scheduling rest too. I hear all you parents of small children bristling and laughing at this suggestion. However you are managing your children and work at this time, within that work slot, you must also schedule rest. Even if things remain undone. You are (I’m assuming) not a brain surgeon and no-one will die if your work doesn’t get done. Get some perspective. So what if you are late with your report, your marking, your book manuscript or whatever. So what. The world continues to turn.

Rest is critical to productivity and stable mental health. Those who work all through the night produce less than those who work regular calm hours. Without rest, we become emotionally and physically depleted. Without rest, we have no reserves. Without rest, there are, as doctors are fond of saying, no good outcomes.

So as well as scheduling time to write, you must now schedule time to rest. Rest between any on-line interactions. Move away from the screen, your chair. Have periods where you are in fact taking a break (you are legally entitled to these). This will inevtibly eat into your writing and research time. So be it. The whole point of the Academic Coach Writing Course is creating efficiency in your writing routines – spend less time doing it, getting more done.

Since some academics find doing nothing more agitating than working, rest periods can also be periods where you plan and think and reflect (but not in some hardcore journaling or homework type of activity). I would always encourage that.

Rest is the most important thing you can schedule. Do it today.

Next time: Research rescue: how, why and when