4.05 Structuring Success in Academic Writing with Anna Clemens

In this insightful episode, Jennifer talks with Anna Clemens, a PhD chemist turned writing coach, about her journey from science journalism to founding the Researchers’ Writing Academy. Anna shares how her love of writing during her challenging PhD years inspired her to help other academics write and publish more efficiently—particularly those aiming for high-impact journals. 

Show Notes:

• Learn more about Anna
• Anna's Podcast on bullet journaling
• Unstressable, the book 

Episode Details

Transcript

Anna Clemens: Researchers' Writing Academy

Jennfer: [00:00:00] Excellent. Okay, so welcome to this episode of The Mindful Academy, where we talk about. Successful in academia with mindful intention, and I'm continuing a series of conversations with people I know who serve academics in some meaningful professional way. And today we're gonna talk with Anna Clements based in Prague about.

Her career, her work with the Researchers Writing Academy. So Anna, I'm gonna turn it over to you and let you introduce yourself and then we will start talking about the Researchers Writing Academy, but we'll talk about you first. Lovely. Thank you so much. Lovely to be here.

I am Anna Clemens. I have a PhD in chemistry and have.

Dabbled in science journalism as well. After my PhD and now I run the Researchers writing Academy where we help [00:01:00] researchers mainly assistant professors, postdocs, other faculty to develop a very like structured writing process with the goal that they can get published really time efficiently.

In the journals they wanna get published in. And it's especially also for people who are maybe looking at those top tier journals that sometimes are a little hard to crack into, especially when you are a new PI and you suddenly have to be the last author. And then it, yeah, maybe a little harder to get in those journals.

So yeah, this is. We do and very excited for this conversation. Excellent. How, okay, you, we have a PhD in chemistry and you told me earlier that you did your PhD in Sweden. How did you move from being a PhD student to a PhD grad to deciding to go this route? Yeah, so I, during [00:02:00] my PhD I really noticed I didn't have the easiest time during my PhD.

I had a bit issues with one of my supervisors for a while. Then I was able to switch, so it all turned out well. But there were some months and like up to two years that were really tough. And while there was a lot going on experiments were difficult, like there was just a lot of adversity the whole time.

I noticed, like when I was writing, I was like in a happy place. Like this was my joyful space when I knew. I could write a paper or what in Sweden what they still do is to write a Centre thesis. So halfway through your PhD you write like a mini PhD thesis. You defend that, so you have a mini defense basically.

But. As part of a training for a PhD really. So I was writing that and I was really enjoying it and I was just feeling so productive. I never felt productive the first two years because [00:03:00] everything was just so hard. It just felt, like I had to do things over and over again. And partly this is just the nature of research.

Like things just don't work out sometimes. And months of work. You just have to redo because that's just the way it is. So you just, yeah. Otherwise it wouldn't be an experiment. Guaranteed success. It wouldn't be science. So I felt that very hard to deal with. I was always a very efficient person.

I always really liked when things were like efficient, no time wasted. And so that was hard. So writing for me was always very efficient. So I was always like, okay. Today I'm gonna work on, I don't know, this chapter. Okay. At the end of the day or the section was done and I was like, great, I can go home and I feel so accomplished.

Like I love that feeling and writing itself was so much fun to me. So I was really reflecting after my PhD. I was like, okay, what did I enjoy? Because I did in the end, enjoy research a lot as well. And I actually still [00:04:00] miss it a little bit, if I'm honest. But I was like thinking, okay, what did I enjoy the most?

And it was writing. So I then searched for jobs that had to do with writing. And the, basically, at first, the only thing I could come up with, I was like, okay, I could help other researchers with writing or I could write myself for example, like about science. 'cause that's, what I had a background in.

So I did, I did go for an internship with the German edition of Scientific American in, but in Germany. So I did it was really good experience. I really got to write a ton published some really nice pieces and learned a lot about Yeah, writing a little bit differently than you would for an academic article.

But then I turned. Around again to helping. Researchers with writing. This was always something I did a little bit on the side, like editing research papers, things like that. And yeah, that then turned eventually into the researchers writing academy. [00:05:00] Wow. You mentioned that's what we do.

Are you a solo shop or do you have contractors or are you like, I don't know much about your business structure? Yeah, so we have some, I work in operations and we have. Andrea even though she's gonna leave and we are just looking for someone new to join. And then we have Yvonne who is like our community experience kind of manager.

So she's a lot in the community. She works a lot. She hosts like co-writing sessions, things like that. Like we have a lot of support in the academy. This is the core team. And then we also have Emma, who is an additional writing coach. She has a medicine background and she hosts also like calls and gets feedback on writing and things like that.

Oh wow. So do you, does the researchers writing Academy serve mostly scientists? Yes. So we don't serve humanities, [00:06:00] but we serve everyone else. So we have like few hard science or. I don't know. I don't actually know the exact support, but we have hard science people and we have social scientists.

Psychology we even have some people in finance, which is interesting. It was interesting to see how well what we teach works actually across the board. As long as you have collected your own data and you're writing a paper based on that data. Then, like we call it the journal publication formula, then that works really beautifully.

It doesn't work so well. Or, you can translate it you can adapt it to like more like theoretic theory papers. But it's a little more work. So how did how did the researchers writing Academy come to be? What's your villain origin story? Yeah, it is interesting.

I was editing papers for researchers, as I said, and what I really noticed was that, the way I was [00:07:00] editing, I was super thorough. This is just the way I work. Like I can't do anything SWD Dash. I have really hard time doing things quick and dirty. I go really deep, I wanted to really turn, for me it was like this puzzle piece and I really wanted to finish the puzzle. I was like, okay, this all needs to fit together. And I realized I was editing papers a little differently from other editors, it was a lot of work. Like it took me a lot of hours and generally my clients really appreciated the work.

I also made the experience though that someone's saying, whoa, I didn't expect this like I expected, like language editing or something like this I'm getting a lot more than what paid for. And they were like, this is too much. This is like not what I wanted.

They were a little angry. Oh, you were providing them with like substantive, have you thought about it this way? Exactly. And I was always drilling down to the story. Like for me, the story was always so important. I was like, this all has to fit together. Like you can't say here that you're doing this and later on [00:08:00] your conclusion doesn't like fit with what you set out to do.

Like this, was really important to me. And that was really interesting. And I was like taken aback and I was like, oh, okay. That had gotten recommended by someone else. So apparently they weren't quite. Prepared for what they would get. Yeah. And then I really realized, wow, I'm doing things differently.

There's something here that I'm doing differently and something that isn't quite working. In the end, it was funny. I was then like, okay, this is what I do and then I. I dunno. A few days later or the next week, they were emailing me saying, oh, I looked through it. This was amazing.

This was so helpful. The initial shock wore off? Yeah. But I think what happened was that they were like, it was annoying to get so much work back on their plate. They wanted the manuscript polished so they could hit submit. Now I'm coming in. And I'm just like ripping apart, right?

And that's of course annoying. And I also realized it was annoying. I was like I'm realizing you all have done, like the whole call with the [00:09:00] teams have done so much work, right? They're sending me this finished thing and then I'm coming and ripping it all up. And I was like, this is just inefficient to me.

I just don't think. This is the way to go, especially when you edit the way I edit. And that was really like my light bulb moment. I was like, no, I need to teach researchers how to do this from start to finish. So then I did I started taking on. I called it coaching, but it's not like coaching, it's more like consultation.

Where I would walk researchers through the process, I would like record little videos that I could watch. They would get a task to do and I would give them feedback, and then I would walk them step by step through like the whole process. And that worked really well. And I was like, huh, okay.

Like I got something here, I think, and then. I started yeah, recording these, making like bigger lessons, like fleshing this out a bit with examples and all the things and building a [00:10:00] course. And that course then turned over the years into a whole program because really members were just asking me, Hey, we want a community.

Hey, we want co-writing. Can't we have co-writing? Can't we have writing retreats? And now. It's quite the thing where, yeah, we are really like providing this whole system for researchers, for academics. So they know how to write something really and really time efficiently, but also have the structure 'cause we offer so many co-writing sessions and other things.

Yeah. That they can actually implement it as well. And structure and community. Our we need more than just our innate brilliance to churn things out. Having that support is great. And as you know from, graduate school and as anybody who's listening knows, having structure and community while you're either a grad student or a postdoc or a faculty member is hit and miss.

You [00:11:00] often have to create it for yourself if you want it. So you're offering that to. The people who work with you, which I think is really cool. Where do your clients come from? Are they, since you're in Prague and you're graduate. Studies were in Sweden. Are they mostly European?

Are they North American? It's a real mix. Mostly North American but Europe to Australia, New Zealand, asia, even we have a couple in Africa and couple in South America. Honestly, the other day I was updating my website and I was like, oh, I'm gonna write where everyone is from, like where we have members.

And I kept writing, writing, writing out countries like it's so many. It's really lovely. This is what I really like about the Researchers Writing Academy is that it really brings together researchers from literally all over the world and from different stages in their career too. I really like that there's so much that you can learn from each other and it's sometimes so nice as well.

I think being able to go outside your university [00:12:00] for that support and just get a little bit of a different perspective on things. Yeah. Yeah. I agree that external perspective paired with external support feels less vulnerable than seeking support and perspective within the institution where you might have to put your hand up and say.

I'm not 110% sure what's going on here and that kind of vulnerability doesn't always feel safe. Yeah. Yeah. This is so true. I think especially for professors, who feel like, oh, I should know how to write. There's no way I can admit to this, that I'm actually either not getting published in the journal I publish in or have a really horrible experience I don't know how many of your clients, but probably you have been in touch with clients who find writing really excruciating, horrible, like some academics suffer so much, like it's such a [00:13:00] huge emotional burn and. They can't speak about it like in the institution, at the university, in the department because you would open up there's a lot of shame attached to that and maybe it would be to the detriment.

Absolutely. And I do, in my one-on-one coaching, I have tons of clients who either find it like emotionally gut wrenching or just today I was talking to somebody. Who you know is at that point where you've wrapped up and I work. Very disciplined, independent, like I have. I have doctors, I have clinicians, I have humanists, I have social scientists, I have scientists.

Like I don't care what you work in. But especially for the humanists. Where and some of the social sciences where textual work is the thing and where the, eight to 10,000 word article and the [00:14:00] monograph, single authored monograph are the standard by which you are judged. I find that people either get bogged down in, I have too many irons in the fire, where do I even start?

How do I pivot? And then once you're in it, like I. Shouldn't this be easier? Why is this so hard? And I know from my own career that literally I had told to me that you are only as good as the last thing you publish. Wow. Now that was not told to me in my graduate program, and it was not told to me in my department where I had tenure, but it was an idea that circulated in my academic community and so much pressure.

And it's pressure that's not just tied to your career, it's tied to your value as a human being. A hundred percent. Wow. Such a toxic thing to say. Yeah. Yeah, the emotional [00:15:00] burden of, am I doing it right? Am I doing enough of it? Am I doing it in the right places? Am I having the right impact?

That's huge. What I also see is when academics I. See others who are maybe a little further advanced, have a really easy time getting published and make it seem really easy. And they think, oh, writing is easy. Getting published is should be easy for me. Why is it not easy for me? And I think that is this so few academics I think are opening up about how hard it is really. They make it sometimes seem easy and then it is easier, right? As soon as you have a name, if you publish like journal articles, it's easier to get into journals to get published in those journals. There's, this should be this way.

Probably some people won admit to it, but. Come on. Like it is that way. And the really career researchers I work with are keenly aware of it. Yeah, when you're this person, of course it's easy for you. Yeah. But it's me from Adam. So it's not that easy for [00:16:00] me. I, how do you make a name for yourself if you only have easy success once you have a name for yourself?

Yeah. And then I think the problem is that then a lot of academics go, oh, I should know this. Like, why don't I know this? And there is this real gap between of course you don't know how to do this because nobody ever gave you a process like. Someone's making it seem really easy, but honestly, is what they're writing this good?

I don't know. Is it just their name? There's a lot of factors. Maybe they're just making it look easy. But in reality, they're spending their whole Sundays. Yeah. Working on their articles. You don't know and Right. This is what I'm trying to the message I'm trying to put out there is, hey, like there is a process to make it easier.

Writing is really hard, like it's cognitively highly demanding task, as you say, like especially. Writing a monograph or like a bigger piece or but even if you just, I'm just doing air quotes, like writing a journal article, there's still often a lot of literature that you need to make sense of or a lot of data.

If you have collected a lot of data, you need to make sense of that. Like how does this all connect? What's the story here? This is so super hard work. But at the same time, also, once you know how to put it into a process, how, once okay, first I do this, then I do this, and then every step is still, demanding, but at least okay, these are the steps.

[00:17:00] It makes it so much more doable. You would do having a formula to follow or steps to follow. It reduces your cognitive load a little bit. And also I'll give you my language for that when I think about, some of the processes that I share with my clients. How can I plan things out? In with intention, with my values in mind, with what I think of as success in mind. I create a plan and then I have that structure to fall back on. And there are gonna be days when you wonder like, why did I get up today? I don't, doesn't does any of it matter?

I don't feel efficient. My brain's not. But you have this deal with yourself and you know that if I follow the plan, I will make progress. And so it, it provides. A scaffolding of trust in yourself. That like I I'm just gonna follow the plan. I don't have to recreate my agenda every day when I wake up.

I don't have to find the motivation every day. I don't have to find the structure and formula every day. I don't have to, tap into what lights me on fire every single day. [00:18:00] If I do the planning when I'm plugged in and aligned, then. I have, yeah. I have a scaffolding to build around and I can trust myself a little bit more.

And I think that's so valuable because I think a lot of people are clawing their way through, whether it's writing or for a lot of people even teaching like it is daily emotional investment. And that's hard. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're putting it really well. The self-trust, that's such an important piece.

Once you have a process that you can really trust. And, yeah, it's catching me, I. Do I try to make processes for everything I do, like repeatedly. And I really notice, just a silly example, like I, on Mondays I always do like financial tasks, which I honestly loath and some you're weeks.

My brain just doesn't work with numbers. I just dunno what's happening. Like it's just [00:19:00] all scramble and I can't really grasp it, but I have a T Trello board and I have a checklist, and I know I can just blindly follow this checklist and everything will be okay, even though I'm not quite sure like what really is going, am I doing the right thing?

But I know I'm doing the right thing because I'm literally following the checklist and other days. I am like, no, I don't even need the checklist because I know the steps. My brain is so switched on. Yeah. It just goes, okay, done. But this checklist is so important for me. Because for those days that you mentioned where I don't know. Something's just not working. Yeah. And to have to pull yourself up. So that you can do the cognitive work. Like it, it's just, yeah, it just adds to the burden. And and that's a great example, right? I know what needs to get done. I map it out when I'm in a good place and I can, map out the process.

Yeah. And then I just have to follow the process. I do not have to be a genius every Monday. I just have to follow a process every Monday. Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:00] Yeah, I like that. Like how you say you, I don't have to be a genius. I think actually this, what happens a lot as well with academics is who wanna write something.

They think they have to reinvent the wheel. They think they have to come up with a process themselves. Yeah. Because as if that is part of the work. Instead of just going no, like someone did the work for you. That is just something you can follow. Yeah. Like it's totally fine. Use the formula.

And you don't get extra cookies for having recreated. Yeah. And some people are on social media. I sometimes get the comment, how can there be a formula because I can't believe it. Of course, there are small variations for everyone, but for if you have data that you write an article around, there honestly is a formula.

Like you can follow that formula. I'm sure you can do another process too, but this formula really works well. And if you've read enough articles, [00:21:00] can't you see the underlying formula a bit, right? Yeah. In the final product, like. We know there's an abstract, there's we go, there are sections of a scientific article.

Yeah. I was about ready to list them off and then I began worrying that I don't remember what they all are because it's not my native field. So I will just say there are sections in a science article, which again is a little bit different than in the humanities and the social sciences I think can go either way.

But like I was never taught a formula for writing. I. Scholarship that did literary studies. And having now worked with a lot of people, and I'm not a writing coach, but especially when I first started getting people through their big projects is a huge part of my one-on-one coaching work.

And so I've done a lot more thinking and talking and looking at other people's writing in the last eight years. And. I now refer to myself, my past self as an [00:22:00] unnecessarily miserable professor. Like I was making it unnecessarily hard on myself. In both teaching and research. And in research I.

I didn't trust that there was a structure or a formula and nobody was talking about there being a process. Even other than you read, you come up with your ideas, you map it out, you write it like, great, but that's not a formula, right? And nobody was offering a process. I wasn't taught a process other than, think good thoughts and get them on paper and with teaching and this is.

We're not really talking about teaching today, but it's the same thing about making life unnecessarily hard for yourself. I was in my third or fourth year on the tenure track before I realized that I had colleagues in my department and in other departments that like if you taught my example was German 5 25 literature after World War ii, if I taught that every other year.

[00:23:00] I did not have to write a new syllabus with new literature every other year. I could actually teach the same class twice. I had a friend in philosophy who was like, oh yeah, I'm teaching ethics this fall, I teach it every fall. So it plug and play. It doesn't require a lot of extra prep.

And I was like, plug and play. No extra pro. You're not re oh. Because this year students haven't taken it, but. Oh, I could reuse that. How fascinating. Like I thought it was virtuous and fun and it wasn't intellectually somewhat stimulating to start fresh every other year, but it wasn't efficient.

Yeah. And it didn't get me cookies. Yeah. For young gold stars, for making your life hard. A lot of us once you go through sort of the academical ladder you get so trimmed to get the gold star, like it's all about, oh, you have to be the best, like you have to give everything and a little more because then you're top [00:24:00] of class and then you are this or that.

And it's just, it's unhealthy, isn't it? Once you're in a job, like it doesn't serve you. And I think a lot of women, especially I. Are conditioned to to have that approach and then, eventually it will end in burnout. If you try to give 150%, it ends in burnout and it ends at some point.

And this is something I see in my work a lot and I wouldn't be surprised if it bubbles over into your work as well, that especially at the associate professor ranks the women, and this is gendered, it happens to women more often than men. There's data to show this. The women who are. In the habit of, and have been socialized to put their hand up and say, yes, I'll do that.

They're the ones who wind up as department chair, as associate professor, or get tasked this big initiative or Right. Like when you're always doing a little bit more people and succeeding as a teacher and succeeding in [00:25:00] your scholarship, people assume, oh, you have broad shoulders, you can carry this too.

And then. You're overperforming, and I'm using air quotes here. You're overperforming and yeah, that's where you get to burnout because you've never. You've never said, oh, I don't have to make it hard on myself. I also wonder if that actually is contributing to women leaving the academy more. I'm not sure if women are leaving more than men, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was that way.

And I just, I'm thinking about this because I got an email yesterday from someone who was like, writing is so a professor and writing is so hard for me. I'm giving this one more shot. And if this isn't gonna work, I'm gonna leave academia. And I think, I wonder, this is, it's either burnout that sometimes that needs to leaving or it's just before burnout.

Okay. Let's leave, let's do something else because this is too much and this is so sad, right? This is. So tragic [00:26:00] because there is another way. It is really hard these days. There's just so much to do. I dunno. We have created this administrative monster, right? Where honestly though, I mean I, you and I just said we, you and I have nothing to do with this, but yeah.

Institutions and regulatory bodies and governments, yeah. Regions and Yeah. Lawmakers have created, yeah, like everything requires so much. And there's so much overhead though, right? Overhead work. Yeah. Yeah. It, it is a bigger and less pleasant job than you think you're getting into. If you become enamored of academia as an undergrad, looking at your professors going, oh, that looks cool.

What I find so tragic is that it could be such a fantastic job. It is still is I think a fantastic job, but it could be like the best job in the world. And yeah, that makes me like, ah yeah. I feel exactly the same way. Like it has the potential to be the best job in the world and.

And I think making it into the best job in the world, like some of that is on the individual, right? How do you intentionally create your career? And that's something that I work with people [00:27:00] on. And then of course, a lot of it is on the institution. And and that is my motivation for doing leadership work and leadership coaching and facilitation for leadership groups because yeah. I think when entire institutions operate from a like fear and scarcity based mindset, right? Where and, okay, we're recording this in early 2025, like if your institution is operating currently under fear, that's because. The world's on fire. And if you're in the United States, you have an administration that's actively hostile to higher education.

And yes, fear is required, but like the last 20 years, I'm not sure that fear was as necessary as a lot of institutions acted as though it was. And so like this, I agree. Working conditions for. Faculty and staff have diminished in, I think, unnecessary ways. Like I don't, I was unclear as to the justification for why work had to look like that and and so I agree.

Maybe things get to change after they fall [00:28:00] apart. I don't know. Hopefully, I think you were saying like it's a lot on the institutions and it's also on the individual. I think we have individually, a lot of us also really falling victim of this, like fear this like not seeing the abundance, right?

And it's easier to say. Than to do. But there's so much like we have I don't know. It's never like the individual's fault. It's a lot the fault of the world, right? I think social media and our phones play a big role in that because they're just making us so anxious. So we are, and there's really like fear-based mindset a lot of the time.

It's like we don't even see the potential and we don't allow ourselves to dream and to trust ourselves that we can be. Really good at something that we can be successful at something. And I see this in academia so much. I, yeah it's sad. And how do you It is sad. And as you're speaking I'm prompted to ask this is, you and I see it in our work with scholars but also. We're running our own little [00:29:00] labs here, in a way how do you keep yourself focused on possibility and abundance and not Pollyanna optimism, but how do you stay tapped into that? That's a really great question. So what I really try to do, I value. I dunno how to say it.

Time off work highly. Like I have very strict boundaries as to when I work and when I'm off work. I basically will almost never, except when there's like an emergency or special event find me working on a weekend. I just don't do it. I generally don't work mornings. I take mornings for myself or for errands or for, all sorts of things, but not work.

And I have some practices as well that I am relying on. So I'm really into journaling. I dunno if you're familiar probably, but maybe some of your listeners are too with a bullet journal method, [00:30:00] which I really love. I was just talking with a client about bullet journaling like 15 minutes before you and I got on this series.

Yeah, that's funny. It's so good and you can. Adapted to your own needs and I actually recorded a podcast episode about it. If people are interesting to hear how I'm using it you can find that. And I like to journal in the mornings to clear my head and I find it incredibly useful and I try to.

So my journal practice is in a way that I just do some like free flow writing. So I just like stream of consciousness what's stuck. I get it out on the paycheck. It sounds so silly. It helps so much. Then I write what I'm looking forward to in a day. And then I write what is going to be difficult today and how, what can I do now to make it a little easier?

And this. Oh my God, this question has unlocked so much for me because then I realize, Ooh, I'm [00:31:00] carrying this tension around with me, which I notice. I sometimes have or I guess most days, honestly, like I wake up with this tension floating around. And I can't because I'm not really thinking about it consciously.

It's just like floating around. And as soon as I ask myself this question, it's coming out. I'm addressing it done. And honestly, the tension is resolved in most cases because I have a plan and sometimes I can just solve it right away. And then I write, sometimes I write what I'm grateful for too.

I'm trying to do this more really this I think, I dunno, it sounds cheesy, doesn't it? Like when you say, Ooh what you're grateful for. But it is really helpful because I think we need to also learn to appreciate what we have and be in a space where. I don't even know how to put this into words, but once you feel it, like when you're really appreciative, when you're really appreciative of what you have, you feel so full and so fulfilled. And then the problems that may come up during the day don't feel as heavy because, I have [00:32:00] all of this and things in perspective, right? Because our brains have this negative bias, right?

Like our brain's trying to alert us. I read a book recently. By Moore Godard Unstress School. And he was like writing, it's it's a, like our brains are fire alarms. I thought it was such a good analogy. They're just trying to alert us hey, there's something that might threaten your survival.

They blow it out of proportion. Fire alarm. Super loud. Our brain goes super loud, screaming at us. Tiger. Tiger. Fire. Fuck. Doom. Doom. Yeah. Yeah. But. In, I don't know. Most cases it's a false alarm. And we just go with a fire alarm. Okay. Thanks for your work. We don't like, I dunno you don't grab the family silver and start running for the exit.

Absolutely. Yeah. You are just like, okay, false alarm, whatever. And this is how we should treat our brains too, and I'm really trying to do that. I think it's such a good practice learning how your brain, like whatever your brain produces is not always the truth. They exaggerate, they they're trying to get your attention.

So they exaggerate. They have a negativity bias because they're trying to keep [00:33:00] you safe. And being aware of this game changer, honestly yeah. This is this is what helps me. No, I appreciate you bringing that up. And this is called the Mindful Academy for a reason, like what you're talking about is I talk about it from a meditation and mindfulness perspective, but this lesson that your brain.

Is first of all, not always your friend. Second of all, we have like somewhere between 60 and 80,000 thoughts a day. Most of them are completely unbidden. Our brain is just doing its thing to try to keep us alive and manage our energy efficiently and all of that. That doesn't mean that what's popping up in there is true.

Yeah. And our job. Okay and I wrote down your process, you're journaling. Some free writing and then what am I looking forward to today? What's gonna be difficult that I can make a little bit easier and gratitude, like what that process is. Basically giving your [00:34:00] brain, your heart, your body a focus, and not just letting it go.

Look for snakes in the bushes, which is I think what my brain would do if left to its own devices. There's gonna be a snake in that bush. I should be on high alert. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I love that process. Yeah. Yeah. It really is so effective. And I think coupled with enough rest, really having a hobby, really having other things or family.

Friends, something else that totally can take your mind off work. I think it's so necessary. Like our brains just can't be stuck with one thing for too long. You'll be less productive even though. You're putting more hours in, but it doesn't work that way. And we have studies that show that there's, I know you can work 88 hours a week, but you're not gonna work 80 hours a week.

Yeah. Like after a certain point, you all efficiency has been lost and you're just spinning your wheels. Again, that's so interesting, right? I was just thinking, there's also studies that show [00:35:00] when you don't sleep enough, you're less productive or less productive. I don't, not sure how they measured that, but there is studies, the weird thing is we still think we are as productive. Like again, our brain now telling us the truth. I was just connecting the.like so funny, right? We are thinking, oh, I'm putting in the hours because our brain goes, yeah, that's good. That's good. That's what's keeping you like publishing those papers, right?

But no. Our brain is not telling you the truth in that moment. And things that feel productive and this is something that I will confess to and that come up in, it comes up in conversations with my clients a lot. Doing your email feels like you're doing work. The act of scrolling can feel productive.

There's a whole category of like phone games and tablet games that are based on this productivity model. And. So we can trick ourselves into defining productivity in all sorts of maladaptive ways. And what would it, what would your life look like if you spent less time on bullshit, [00:36:00] productivity, more time on sleep and walking your dog.

And then an adequate amount of time on like actual cognitive labor. This is such a good point as well. And I think I, I'm like this too. I really love. Feeling productive. Like unfortunately it fuels me and I'm trying to move away from this a little bit because I don't think it's entirely healthy if your whole Yeah.

Sense of accomplishment is based on this oh, I have to be productive. But. We can also use this to our advantage. I guess this is what the journal publication formula is, because it gives you a list so you can go check off a list, right? And you don't have to sit there in your writing session and be like, okay, I've read this paper and now I'm doing this, and now I'm doing that.

And then you feel like, Ooh, what did I accomplish? Three hours have gone and I don't have anything to show for it because I didn't write any words. This is another like thing that is a bit like my [00:37:00] pet peeve is when people go they're writing, they're measuring their writing progress in terms of goals because they do wanna have the check.

Yeah. But I think number of words. It doesn't make much sense, right? It's the whole other discussion. There's a lot of stuff that happens before and after. Just number of words on page. Exactly. And often we don't want more words, we want better words. More concise, more like tight writing is always better than a long article.

So because of that, what I think it's so necessary, like whether, you do the journal publication formula or whether you. Create your own process. Like my biggest recommendation is take the time to write down the process with checklists. Because that's what your brain likes. So we can go tick, tick tick.

We love a checklist. Everybody loves crossing things off a list. I know. Today's todo brush teeth done. Yeah. Sun. Yes. And it's funny like also I [00:38:00] think. Just realizing that we are all like human, right? There's just all things that our brains love, like our brains are. Just what they are like and there's no escaping that and there's only being like, accept the accepting of that.

And also kind then when we feel like, oh, our brains are right. Being really silly. Being kind to yourself is, yeah, that's

hard as well. Very hard. It is hard and self-compassion is something that, so there's a scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and I think she's an ed psych her name is kristen Neff. And she is one of the premier researchers on self-compassion in North America. And she writes both sort of academic things and then she has a few things that are very much for a public audience and.

What I love about, [00:39:00] self-compassion as a strategy and as an academic research topic is none of it is rocket science. It's like the five lessons I learned in kindergarten. Simple in a way. But as with a lot of things that are intellectually easy to understand, it is very difficult to embody them in practice because it's not and this is, maybe this is my own story, but I see it repeated often enough that it, it is a pattern that especially.

People who are, who do intellectual labor like we can see intellectually, oh, that's what it looks like. Because we see how it works or we see what it looks like, we equate understanding like the outcome or understanding the concept with doing it. And not understanding that the gap between where I am now and the full [00:40:00] realization of that concept of self-compassion.

Or of writing productivity or whatever is a daily, or at least very regular practice of doing, of becoming the person who is self-compassionate, not the person who understands self-compassion, becoming the person who is a writer, not just the person who understands how to write. And, so like putting in the little work like you, you said twice. Oh, this sounds cheesy. No. What it is, it's just embodying the principle that you intellectually understand. Yeah. And when we break it down like that, it sounds really simple, but the embodying work of actually doing it every day. Is transformative and you can't shortcut it by just understanding it.

Yeah. Oh, you put this so well. Yes. I think it's also because as academics you are so much in your brain the whole time, right? So you. Almost don't know anymore. There is [00:41:00] something else. It's not only about understanding, right? Like I, okay, I have understood the scientific concept. That's the check, right?

That's done. Yeah. But for something like self-compassion Yes. Is, or gratitude, right? Easy to understand. Makes total sense. And does feel overly simplistic, but. Doing it is really hard, doing it consistently. And then the feeling the, like you, you said embody, I really like that. Like embodying that, yeah.

This is so different. It's a whole new level. And if we wanna circle back to the very outset, like you can understand the scientific concept, but if you're gonna. Produce or write something, you have to be able to replicate it, right? And so like understanding it and then putting it into practice is a challenge.

It's true. It's true. Writing is almost the embodying of like. How you have [00:42:00] perceived your data, your results. And I think this is what's making it so hard, right? Because this is what researchers tell me all the time. I can talk about it. I can like this is the equivalent to thinking about something.

But writing it down is really hard. Yes. Because you have to make sense of it, right? You have to, yeah. All the sense making, right? Yes. Sense making. Yeah. That's the work. That is the work. Yeah. Yeah. Taking something complex and getting it into something Yeah. Integrating it and working with it. Yeah. Yeah.

That someone else can understand, so that it's a pro, so that it is something that somebody else can, follow along with and see the fruits of. Yeah. That makes, yeah. That's really cool. It so you. Is your website just researchers writing academy.com or how do people find you? Yes, you can do that.

You can also go anna clemens.com. It's the same website. [00:43:00] It's just and yeah, you can find me there. There's a free training on my website, so if you like, wanna check out, wanna see a little bit what the journal publication formula is like. What are the steps? What is she teaching me at? So there and yeah, I have a podcast too called the Researchers Writing Podcast.

That was gonna be my next question 'cause you said you Oh, okay. Known about bullet journaling and I wanna Yeah. To that because I love a good bullet journaling conversation. Yeah, you can find that on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcast. So you can watch the video or just the audio, whatever. Brilliant.

Yeah, you can find me on social media too. And that's on Blue Sky. I might@annaclearance.com. On Threads. I'm researchers write and on LinkedIn. It's my name and I clearance. So you me I'll have your bio, your social links, your podcast link and your [00:44:00] website link all in the show notes along with, we talked to, you mentioned the book Unstress.

Oh yeah. I'll provide those for people so that they're easy to find. But if you're listening, perfect. You have Google at your fingertips and it's A-A-C-L-E-N-E-N-S, just like it sounds because we love Germans.

We love a good phonetic language around here. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy. My duo lingo streak in French has bitten the dust. I, oh no, I should, it happens living in Canada, spending time in Montreal. I should get back on it. But there are very few ways to learn ki. French in the world, even in Canada.

Oh. So I, I find that while my grasp of metropolitan French is quite good then I go to Quebec and people open their mouths and I just want to cry. Oh, so ING doesn't teach you that? Yeah. And if, and my children who both went to Canadian schools also [00:45:00] learned metropolitan French, we do really our own students.

Oh, that, that is bizarre. It is super interesting there. There's all sorts of stuff there that. Not gonna touch.

I love Quebec. It is super, it is. It's a nation within a nation in all sorts of ways, and that brings with it a lot of richness and a lot of quirky, weird stuff. Interesting. Yeah. So I especially when I'm feeling frustrated with French, I. Really yearn back for German content where I can feel like both accomplished in a foreign language and also nurtured.

Which is why prior to recording Anna and I were talking about podcast recommendations in German so that I have something that for a little change of pace. Yeah. Yeah. So if anybody out there is also listening to really cool podcasts and you wanna share. Oh yeah, let us know. Love a good podcast recommendation, right?

Anna and I both have [00:46:00] dogs. I need something to listen to while I'm out there walking Sadie and she's barking at the air. But today, when you're done listening to this, go check out the researcher's writing podcast. And I would say even if you're a humanist, give it a listen. Because thinking about structuring your writing. Is one, it's the layer of structure helps if, because there's your intellectual curiosity, there's your own content.

There's structure, there's audience, right? There's all sorts of layers. And and so thinking about the layer of structure in new ways might trigger something for you, even if you're not eng deeply engaged in a scientific project. I have found as a humanist talking with my science colleagues and my science clients about their writing has helped me see my writing in clearer ways.

Interesting. I think there's value across the disciplines in thinking about structure in writing. So have a listen to Anna. Thank you so much, Jennifer. All right, Anna, this was a delight. Thank you so much. And I look forward to our continued [00:47:00] conversations on Slack. Yeah, me too. All right. I had so much fun.

Thank you.