It’s been weeks and I haven’t done anything. And I don’t need to tell any academic the value of time over the summer for your own research and writing, and I’ve lost so much of it. Can those who got out of this funk or whatever you may call it, share what worked to bring them out of it?
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I spent two years doing nothing (a lot of issues including no supervisor) but then one day it just hit me looking at my colleague’s progress. Completed entire research in 3-6 months since then.
When I hit a wall, I will change the scenery. Instead of my office, I’ll go to a coffee shop that will let me sit there all day. Or I’ll work in my backyard. Or at a park. I find that new scenery gives me enough new stimulus to freshen my perspective.
A writing group has helped me through monograph paralysis and all sorts of other funks. I find it helps break the feeling that you’re alone with all the pressure.
I have a deadline on Wednesday.
I decided to thank the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 in my acknowledgments.
What part are you “supposed” to be working on? Switch it up. If you’re writing the intro, switch to chapter 1. If you’re starting chapter 2, write the middle of it first.
I have two modes for big projects. 1) Do the hardest part first to get it out of the way. 2) Do the easiest part first to build some momentum. Pick one, sit down, and don’t get up until you hit a realistic quota.
Personally when I can’t start on the writing I find it helpful to dick around with the formatting. I start laying out the document with front matter and chapter titles. Then I need a bit of text to go into it so I have something to apply formatting to, so I write some stuff off the top of my head. Then I want to see how the next chapter will look and I put something there. I’m not really thinking of “writing a monograph”, just putting stuff in the document so I can format it. And then once I have all the layout done, I can jump around the document and put fragments where they belong as I think them up, or as I’m inspired to work on them, rather than trying to generate a whole orderly book out of my brain in sequence.