momentum is fleeting - work for clarity instead

work every day! write every day! finish your dissertation in 15 minutes a day! there are endless variations of this writing advice, but they almost all depend on you being able to show up, and work effectively, as frequently as possible. but what if that isn't possible, for any number of reasons? what can you count on if momentum isn't going to be a sustainable fuel for you?

let's try clarity - and in this episode, i'll give you a bunch of ways to try and build it in! 

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Grad School is Hard, But...is a podcast by Dr. Katy Peplin of Thrive PhD! learn more at thrive-phd.com - can't wait to get to know you better, or get access to my free falling planning workshop here!

Transcript

  📍  Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. 

In this season,

I'll be sharing the anchor phrases, tools, and strategies that underpin all of the work that I do with clients as part of Thrive PhD, and of course, the things that work for me as I attempt to be a human and a scholar.

And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it



 Have you ever forced yourself back to your desk even though you weren't feeling well, you didn't have the time, or you had something else more important to do because you were worried about losing your momentum?  Have you ever looked back at a good string of writing days and thought, yeah, that's it.

That was the momentum I had it.  Have you been wishing for that momentum to visit you again and not really understanding why it hasn't? Well, this is the episode for you. I.  Think that perhaps the most common piece of advice, especially for writing, is to do it every day, even for a minute, even for 15 minutes.

Some people will prescribe 15 minutes or a hundred words. It really depends, but everyone says, work every day. Show up every day. Build that consistency, make it a habit. A lot of the advice just pushes this idea that you have to keep going, that you have to have that momentum and.  I have seen that be true for some people, but what I've really seen is that it makes it all feel very fragile because what happens when you can't make it back every day?

What if you have a teaching schedule or a caretaking schedule or a body or a brain that just doesn't want to, can't, can't access the everyday rhythm? What if momentum isn't really possible for you?  If momentum is possible for you, feel free to turn this off. Keep going. You have other things to do with your day, but if you've been frustrated by that idea that if momentum isn't real or if momentum isn't something I can access, then how am I gonna make steady, measurable plannable process?

Then I have some good news for you because I think that at least 80% of the time when we say that we have momentum with a project, we actually mean that we have clarity.  If you've been writing every day for two weeks, you probably have a lot of clarity about your argument, about your text. It all feels recent and alive.

And if you don't have detailed notes, it's not that much work to figure out where you left off because it was just a couple days ago, and you'll be able to quickly and effectively access what needs to come next. There's a clarity that comes from being in the head space of the project. When you know where you are and what needs to be done, it's so much easier to get started. 

It's easier to stay in that flow and that rhythm because you're not using all of your energy to reorient or refamiliarize yourself.  I know that one of the hardest things about getting started for me after some time away is that it takes so much time and energy to spin it back up. I know that I can have some real resistance.

To opening that document again, to finding my notes, hunting down where things are. I've even worked with clients that can't bring themselves to turn on the computer. I get it. That resistance is real. And a lot of times when people say they have momentum, they mean that that resistance is gone because they know where that next step is coming.

So if you are looking for momentum. And are finding that it's hard or maybe even feeling impossible to access. Here are some quick things that you can do to introduce some clarity so that you might still be able to feel that energy moving forward, even if a specific every day or very frequent rhythm isn't possible for you. 

Step one, spend some time leaving good notes for yourself. Where to start the next day, what you were thinking about, what to read. You can do this in a couple of different ways. I like to use a task manager for this. I also am a big fan of post-it notes and scribbled down notes everywhere. I even know someone  who used to leave their writing in the middle of a sentence just to make it that much easier to pick back up again, but.

It might feel like wasted time to leave those notes, but I promise that future you will be grateful that past you left them some breadcrumbs to follow on the trail.  Next, make your tasks as actionable, small and concrete as possible.  If you are in the habit of having really big task things on your list, like write the method section instead, try and break that down into 15 or maybe even 20 tasks, like describe the lab equipment, describe the process for filling out those vials. 

Write a sentence, introducing this citation. Make sure that your citations are formatted. These small concrete tasks are gonna help you feel like you know what the next steps are because they're clear as opposed to something as big and nebulous as write that section.  You might wanna schedule some time to reread your writing or your notes to re-familiarize yourself with projects that are feeling dormant.

I sometimes like to think about this as taking an old project out for a coffee date where I get myself a nice treat, I make a good cup of coffee, and I just spend time reading through things to reorient myself.  Not squeezing that in in the beginning of a session when I'm trying to quote unquote, make a lot of writing progress, helps me feel like I'm dipping my toe back in, in a way that feels useful and like I'm moving forward without adding extra pressure into my very precious writing time. 

Or you could experiment with spending a few minutes, even two or three journaling about your work to ease into the head space on the days where it would feel hard or impossible to do more. I used to think about this like sending a voice note or a quick check-in text to a friend that I couldn't see. You know that there are some seasons in your life where you would love to spend hours on the phone with a good friend or maybe see them or go for a walk or a hike or whatever you do, but it's not possible.

So instead of just ignoring them and hoping that they're still there for you in a couple of weeks, why don't you send them a quick text and say, Hey thinking about you, hope you're doing well. How's this specific thing going? It's a much lower lift. It's definitely not gonna take the place of some really good quality time, but it's gonna help you feel connected.

Journaling about your work can be that way too. Spending two or three minutes in between classes or recording a voice note when you're in the pickup line.  About your work is gonna help you maintain that connection, that feeling of clarity, so that when you do have a little bit more time or a few more resources, you're gonna feel that much more connected and that much less distant.

And then lastly, challenge this idea that momentum is something ineffable that you can't control. I know that when I was looking at sports teams growing up, there was this sense that like, momentum was something that visited a team, that you couldn't control it, that it just sort of arrived and that it was powerful but impossible to schedule. 

I don't think this is exactly true for our writing for our academic process in general, start believing if you can, that you are in charge of clarity. Momentum might be something that you don't have as much control over, but clarity is something that you can create through practices, through habits, through tools that help you outsource a lot of that work that happens when you're working on something consistently to keep it fresh.

Gives you a little bit of a chance to access that when the rhythm itself isn't going to be doing that heavy lifting.   I hope this has been helpful for you. It's always helpful for me to remember that even if one specific rhythm isn't accessible to me in a certain time or season of my life, that there are ways to feel how I wanna feel using different tools. See you next week. 

 📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com.  Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show.  Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!