Fighting Procrastination for a Productive Summer

As it turns out, having deadlines is a good thing, for me at least. Because a deadline pushes me to get-it-done, whatever 'it' is. In this case, getting writing done. Am now in that unenviable position of being on summer break, having a bunch of writing projects, but finding myself procrastinating because most have no deadlines.

You see, last week I had a deadline. I worked day and night, and met that deadline...granted, that was after asking for more time :-). Once I met that deadline on Friday, I haven't been able to get back to writing since, until today that is, when I grudgingly opened up my Google docs to start looking at my writing projects.

A few weeks ago, I was all Gung Ho about the summer, and how productive I was going to be. Now, am realizing that if I don't get my act together, it's going to be a disappointing summer. I cannot travel far, so I might as well do something, be productive.

So here is my plan.

First of all, I am revising my summer writing goals. OK, so its not too bad. I have accomplished one goal - a book chapter for the handbook of autoethnography co-authored with one of my colleagues. A second goal is in process - copy editing the book Collaborative Autoethnography  which I co-authored with two of my colleagues, forthcoming from Left Coast Press.

Secondly,  what I need to do is look at 3 other goals and projectize them. By projectizing (yes, I know thats a made up word), I mean to break down each goal into its constituent parts. For example, I presented a paper at the Eastern Communication Association meeting in Boston last month, it was a very rough draft. Now I need to start reconstructing it, and discussing with my co-authors the details of how we will work on the paper, including potential journal to send it to once completed. I need to do that with each goal - craft a project out of it.

Thirdly, I then need to introduce each project to my summer calender.  That means, for example, deciding which project to work on each week, how many hours to spend on research, reading, drafting, revising, until each project is mapped out towards completion. For example, this week here is what I plan to accomplish:

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Date	Goals and activity	Personal goals
June 19-23	Teaching: ·      Check discussions ·      Dissertation reviews Writing: Collaborative Autoethnography ·      Meet with HC and KAH (Wed) discuss copy editing; discuss CAE methods article; discuss AERA proposal ·      Read through CAE manuscript, check headings. Craft response to copy editor. Email by Wed night. ·      CAE Methods Paper – Outline Writing: CAE Advisor/GA Relationship ·      Collect AE data from MM ·      Craft outline of paper ·      Determine other AE data needed ·      Write proposal for JRP special issue paper	Replace dead roses Pilates Yoga  Date night

I will do the same type of scheduling for the rest of the summer, where I introduce my writing goals and projects into the entire summer schedule. Each time I accomplish a part of the process, I strike it out. I find deep satisfaction in having a week where most items have those strike out lines because it means I was able to accomplish my writing goals for that week. And that is a tremendous aid to fighting procrastination. The more I accomplish, the more motivated I am to do more. If I do not create this kind of schedule, I find that I procrastinate, and worse still, whatever does not get scheduled does not get done.

How do you keep your writing mojo over the summer months?