Tips from the NCFDD Monday Motivator: November 2021 edition

Monday, October 4, 2021
That Mid-Term Sinking Feeling

by Kerry Ann Rockquemore, PhD
Founder, NCFDD

Anthony Ocampo, PhD
Academic Director, NCFDD

This past week, you may have found yourself with that unique mid-term sinking feeling. You're feeling behind. Your work desk (if you even manage to have one these days) is a mess. You feel like you'll never finish all the things you have to do. In fact, you can't even keep straight what you have to do because you're balancing a million things at the job and at home. In fact, you don't even know where to start. This is a feeling that happens to us every mid-term, but in this particular fall, we are feeling it ten-fold.

This week, we want to share some small, doable strategies a peer-mentor of Kerry Ann's recommended to help her inch out of that mid-term hole. Of course, it never makes one immune to that oh-so-common emotion of feeling behind (that's ubiquitous in academia) but has worked in the past, and we hope it's an experiment that can potentially help you too. Please know that in encouraging you to implement these small shifts in your practices, it's not that we aren't acknowledging everything happening in the world around us. We just want to give you some strategies that can make a difference in how the day feels.

Anyway, here it goes:

Whenever Kerry Ann felt stuck, she would always start by checking in with herself. It helps her identify her problems without feeling judged. Her current-sinking feeling is grounded in three technical errors: 1) disorganized space, 2) not knowing what she has to do, and 3) tasks that feel too large and complex to move forward. Even though she could point to weeks or even months in the past when things were moving along slowly, these sinking feelings would make their way back into her life without fail. That was when she decided to re-institute the "Brunsma Research Queue" (or the "BRQ" for short).

The BRQ

Kerry Ann's friend and frequent co-author David Brunsma is the most productive person she knows, a great parent, and always generous in pulling her out of her sinking feeling. Many years ago, he shared with her his strategy (the BRQ) for organizing research and writing projects during mid-term craziness.

The BRQ is a visual flow chart of research and writing projects. The system is simple and requires only free wall space, a bulletin board, and 6-10 "bulldog clips" (they look like the clips at the top of a clipboard). David hung a huge bulletin board on the wall in his office. Next, he printed the numbers 1 through 9 and tacked them up in order with one nail below each number. On the nail, he hung all materials related to a specific research project by a single bulldog clip. On the front of each clipped packet, he placed a cover sheet outlining the tasks that needed to be done to complete the project and its due date (in large bold print).

What she loves about this system is that it FORCES HER to:

• gather all the paperwork related to a project in one place,
• get the paperwork off of her floor/desk/chair/etc.,
• break projects down into smaller series of tasks,
• physically prioritize the projects in a queue from most important to least important,
• face the reality of everything that has to get done,
• say "NO" to requests that crossed her path if it didn't fit squarely with her project goals (of course, there's time for service in between projects!)

This week, she started her Weekly Meeting by re-populating her writing queue. The mere act of cleaning her office, clipping together her packets, and creating her cover sheets brought her tremendous clarity. She even put cover sheets onto beautiful paper to remind her writing projects can be a source of joy. She was able to finish her meeting by mapping her projects onto her calendar for this week. And she KNOWS from experience there's no greater energy-booster than moving her packets off the queue and out the door!

We're NOT describing this organizational system in detail to suggest that you use it exactly as described. Instead, it's a suggestion to stimulate your imagination about how YOU can organize the flow of YOUR work. David started out with a set of problems: 1) too many tasks and deadlines to keep track of in his head, 2) too much paper everywhere, and 3) the sinking feeling that things were not getting done. While he realized he needed to address the deeper issue of getting stretched too thin by requests, his immediate need was to figure out what had to be done, get the paperwork in one place, and order the flow of activity. When he got tired of the ongoing paper and deadline problems, he dreamed up a system that would resolve them.

Kerry Ann's BRQ is the low-budget version: she taped eight cork squares on her wall ($5.99 for a 4-pack), hammered a nail in the middle of each square, and hung clips on them. If you can't imagine the BRQ, you can see a previous version of hers here: KAR BRQ. (In case you're wondering, Anthony has his own version of this, but he prefers different color post-it notes that he can crumple up and throw in a glass jar by his desk-as the jar gets full, he can't help but feel good about it). Kerry Ann can attest that there's a whole new spirit up in her office as a result of re-populating her dormant project queue. She still has a lot of work to finish, but 1) her space is clean enough to work in; 2) she's clear about the tasks she needs to complete, and 3) she has the energy to get them done. Yours may look completely different (as Anthony's does), but the core question is what would it take for you to get your arms around the writing and research that you need to complete between now and the end of the term, get those projects into an organized format, break them down into their smallest components, and move forward this week from a place of confidence and clarity?

The Weekly Challenge

This week, we challenge you to do the following:

• Do a quick self-check to see how you are feeling about your research and writing productivity this term.
• If you have that vague but palpable "sinking feeling," check-in with yourself and try to identify the underlying errors.
• At a minimum, take 15 minutes to strategize how you can take a step forward to resolve one issue this week.
• If your concerns cluster around disorganization, lack of clarity, and/or too many deadlines, think about how you could adapt the BRQ to fit your unique needs.
• If you're looking for an electronic version of the BRQ, try Trello. (We still prefer regular paper!) Here's how an NCFDD member uses Trello to stay organized.
• Re-commit yourself to at least 30 minutes each day for your writing. Nothing provides a better sense of accomplishment than moving forward each and every day.

We hope this week brings anyone with that mid-term sinking feeling the strength to engage it, the clarity to name it, and the creativity to fix it. And remember, be gentle with yourself and make sure to stay connected as much as you possibly can.