Keeping Up Momentum

Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the USA...and yes I am sorta kinda watching the game. More appropriately, I am procrastinating rather than working on my Sunday meeting - that's the time I spend each Sunday planning my work week and ensuring that my writing goals are scheduled along with my teaching, service and life goals. If I fail to add my writing goals to the weekly schedule, the tyranny of my overwhelming teaching responsibilities overtakes every working hour.

So I thought one good way to stop procrastinating is to review this blog, look over the advise that I offer you (which is often also self-pep-talk), and come up with something to say. I haven't posted since November, so this is in fact my first post of the new year. So to the noise of the super bowl,  I thought about how we fail to keep momentum often triggered by our emotional response to requests for revisions.


Perhaps a story or two will illustrate what am talking about. Take student Mwanafunzi, who submitted a draft proposal seven months ago, received feedback from the committee, then fell of the radar. Seven months is a very long time to take to respond to feedback, which for all intents and purposes, should have only taken a few hours worth of work. I thought I'd have had a revised draft a month later, at the longest.

Or take the case of professor Mwalimu Mkuu, who received a revise-and-resubmit from a journal one year ago, and has yet to do the work. In fact, most journals dictate that they want the RnR back within six months, any longer and you have to submit the manuscript as a new submission.

In both cases, the reason for not getting the work done is that both Mwanafunzi and Mwalimu Mkuu felt overwhelmed by the request for revisions, and/or felt slighted by the tone of the reviewers, and/or felt like they'd failed. Perhaps other emotions are involved too. So they put their manuscripts aside for far too long.

The reality for students working on dissertations and professors working on manuscripts is that being required to revise and resubmit is a normal part of the process. An emotional response to the request is also normal. However, you cannot let the emotions overwhelm you to the point of losing momentum. Rather, emote if you must. Then get back on that horse and ride on to the finish line. Read through the reviewers/committees feedback and craft a plan of attack. In other words, emote, then get over it and get on with it!

As always, all the best and questions/comments welcome.

Dr Faith