Writing retreats…

…it turns out they’re my jam. Over lockdown (which this family unit is still doing due to my wife’s health vulnerabilities), I have been missing my normal work processes. I am a weird hybrid because I love planning and I love spontaneity so I was surprised to find that I’ve been missing my routine. Or that it was even a routine in the first place.

Essentially, I would drop the younger dog at a daycare facility twice a week and I would use the man-child’s time off from college / work as a third puppy-free day. Then, I would leave the house. That’s the sum total of the habitual part of the routine. The spontaneity came from choosing where I would work and how long I would stick at it, which varied day to day, thus it didn’t feel very regimented.

Favourite locations:
* University of Chichester library – Bognor Campus
* Chichester College – Brinsbury, also where I worked
* Tesco in Chichester or Havant – for the free parking!
* Costa, Harris and Hoole, Boston Tea Party – for the coffee-on-tap
* Public libraries
* The pub

I had favourite places to sit within each location (and would have a private, internalised strop if they weren’t available when I got there), knew the shortest route from the nearest carpark so I could lug books, had auto-connections to the WiFi in each place and could source an available wall socket in under 6 seconds. In the academic and public library settings, I’d even take in my laptop riser, proper keyboard and mouse, and be amused at the looks I’d get. I like a long stretch of work to really immerse myself and get things done. Sometimes, I’d go early (to get my favourite seat) and just do a traditional working day. Other times, I’d work until bedtime in the venues where that was possible. The routine was very flexible.

Then Covid-19 came along*.

Pop. The routine and all its flexibility was gone. After our initial panic about the pandemic, my wife’s health, money concerns and so on, we began to look at ways to create sustainable work conditions – discussed in previous posts here and here – to improve my productivity. I basically tackled the things I thought I was missing by not being able to access my normal routine.

Somewhere comfy to work: I am on the third iteration of a work-from-home space. I now have a decent desk, very impressive chair, foot rest, good lighting, reasonable internet connection. It is all lovely and I’m grateful to the man-child for the use of his room by day (it’s the biggest, nicest looking space and he’s leaving for university in a few days). But this hasn’t increased my productivity.

Space and time alone: I know that the places I used to work in weren’t solitary but they weren’t full of my people. People who talk at you, ask you questions all day, interrupt you and so on… For a while, I commandeered the lounge: my wife and man-child were forbidden from entering unless I initiated contact. Or there was a fire. Or chocolate. Also, it meant I could avoid the general chaos of the house (mess, washing, dishes) which I thought was also a benefit of escaping to study in other places. It was all calm and quiet but it still didn’t improve my productivity.

Coffee on tap: we’ve long had a good coffee machine at home but the cafetière had broken and sometimes all I want is decent, strong, black coffee. I replaced this, topped up my flavoured syrups for fun lattes and even purchased some frappe making powders to enjoy iced coffee. Again, all good but it didn’t improve my productivity.

It transpired that emulating these features of my previous flexible routine did nothing to help with my motivation and efficacy. Honestly, it was confusing and frustrating. Then, in August, as I was limping towards my first year PhD deadline, I attended an online session called Thesis Writing Workshop led by Dr Esther Allen – Research Development Manager for the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. I was hoping to pick up some tips and tricks for academic writing at this level. Esther’s content was excellent; she provided a lot of help and guidance for those of us who procrastinate, including exploring the reasons behind it. She also talked about writing retreats… I’d previously seen them advertised at the University earlier in the year but as a distance learner with nothing to write (back then), I’d assumed they weren’t relevant to me. Esther described virtual equivalents which were popping up in lieu of in-person retreats and provided some links. With a nothing-ventured-nothing-gained level of desperation, I signed up for a retreat with Virtual Writing Retreat.

The premise is simple. You sign up and pay a £3 charge which helps them to run the events. They send you a link using Slack and you turn up in a secure, moderated chat room. Here you join a mini group for the session of 4 – 6 other writers. Everyone using this service is writing academically. In your mini groups, you announce your goals for the day: a word count, a chapter, a sub-section, specific edits, a rewrite, responding to notes. Then, at particular times, you check in to report back on progress made towards your targets. If you want, you can use a pomodoro timer so you’re working in sprints and they definitely recommend regular breaks – I tend to use the check-ins for this purpose. Sometimes others offer advice but they always offer encouragement.

My first retreat was the 5th August, from 8.45 a.m. – 3.15 p.m. and I wrote 1300 words. It worked. I immediately booked all the sessions they were running up until my 22nd August deadline: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and the occasional Sunday. It had been so effective, I hunted around for another option for the other days of the week and stumbled upon The Writers’ HQ.

Naturally, I really enjoyed their slogan. For the most part, they are a community of creative writers but there have been academic writers in all the sessions I’ve attended. Added bonus: free! They use Crowdcast to start and end the day; you set your goals in the comments box. Then, you check in at various points of the day on their forums or via Twitter if you prefer. The moderators respond to your comments and make sure everyone has been supported. Peers also comment and offer help.

Each of the two organisations offer something different. Virtual Writing Retreat is academic so the others attending understand what I am doing and why. Writers’ HQ is gloriously funny and sweary. The personality types of the organisers and the writers really suits me.

Why did it work? Which part of my pre-Covid-19 routine was it imitating? I think it’s the small-c-catholicism I carry. My pre-pandemic way of working and the new virtual writing retreats tap into my innate sense of I-need-to-do-this-and-do-it-well-and-efficiently-or-I’ll-let-someone-down. Dropping the puppy off at daycare meant arriving by a certain time; I hate being late (something my wife doesn’t care about, much to my frustration) and I’ll do everything I can to be prompt. The virtual retreat taps into this. No one would scold me for being late but I don’t want to miss the beginning and the goal setting… so I’m up, caffeinated (grumpy) and ready to start on time. Without the retreat or the puppy daycare schedule, I’d start sometime just before lunch as I am a nocturnal creature. Equally, the public but private setting meant I felt compelled to get on for fear others would see I wasn’t working or was mucking about on my phone. I know this is ridiculous as no one else in a library, coffee shop or pub gives two cookies about what I am doing… nor is anyone in a writing retreat going to pass judgement. It’s a self-inflicted compunction. I also feel compelled to get things done in the writing retreats so I have something honest to report back during the check-ins.

Virtual writing retreats are my jam because they enable me to healthily take advantage of my completer-finisher-guilt-ridden personality traits. I will continue to use them as I progress with my research and would pay more for the service (don’t mention that to either organisation!). My only regret is that it took me until August to discover them.

*I am more than well aware that this is a less-than-minor impact of the pandemic and I am just contextualising my experience.

Living with a PhD student…

Here is a handy guide on how to approach your spouse or partner as they undertake a PhD. In fact, this would apply to anyone living with somebody undertaking intense studying. Bear in mind, the context of this blog post = a family unit who hasn’t left the house since the middle of March, with the exception of dog walks in a secure paddock and medical appointments. We’re all a little tightly wound at the moment.

***

>> How long will that take you?

Try instead: never asking this question or any other that relates to timescales or speed of work.

Nothing will take me from feeling focussed and on task to exuding misty-red-rage quicker than this question. I have no idea how long it will take me. But I do know it will now take me a lot longer because I have to remember which figurative thread I was pulling on and which of the fifty-billion-million-tabs-I-have-open I was working on. Why do you need to know how long it will take me? You are a bonafide adult and you can occupy yourself or solve your own problem without any input from me.

>> Oh, I thought it was ok to talk [at you about my work / a meme I saw / the man-child] because you looked up from your screen…

Try instead: smiling, if there’s a brief moment of eye contact. That’s it. Nothing else.

Looking up from my screen doesn’t mean I am not processing something. PhDs are weird… you are holding so many ideas in your head at the same time and sometimes trying to push incongruent ones together. Looking up from my screen is usually an indication I am stretching my back, resting my eyes (which have always preferred to read on paper) or I’m sorting and moving things around in my mind palace. Ok, I’m no Sherlock Holmes but I do often visualise things. I will also say that this equally applies to reading for pleasure. Don’t interrupt me and pull me out of the world I was enjoying!

>> Bringing cups of tea or coffee and then moaning or being cross because they go cold.

Try instead: using one of the many lidded thingymabobs that we have (affectionately called stay-hots, in this house).

I realise this example paints me as a bit of a cow. I’m not ungrateful and I will frequently go without nourishment and hydration for many hours because I am in the zone (reading and thinking for several hours in a row so that I can write, literally, a single sentence). So, bringing me beverages is great and much appreciated. But, if I didn’t ask for one, I’m unlikely to even notice it arrive. Whacking it in a device that keeps it hot for longer increases my chance of drinking it. Also, the “telling off” for letting it go cold is another interruption which makes the answer to “how long will that take you?” even more volatile.

>> Offering to tidy up piles of work or books.

Try instead: doing nothing and leaving things exactly as they are.

For a start, in this marriage, I am not the messy one. In the past, I have had to tidy and clean her many offices because she likes to work in chaotic squalor. We are talking a penicillin level of neglect. The idea of her implying I’m working in a mess evokes words such as audacity, arrogance, cheek and delusion. I am methodical – it might not be obvious but there is always a method. So the piles are thus organised because they denote something: the order in which I plan to read, connections between authors and papers, topics or themes. If you touch them, you affect that organisation.

Also, this is an example where a partner or spouse looks like they’re being kind and helpful but the implication is that you’re somehow affecting the household because of the space you’re occupying. I have enough self-imposed guilt about being a 39 year old student without others piling onto it.

>> I thought you were going to work on [x, y, z], today?

Try instead: not commenting on when and how I choose to take time off.

See aforementioned references to self-imposed guilt. Sometimes, I am just not motivated to start or to climb back into the-monstrosity-of-an-office-chair-I-was-forced-to-buy-to-placate-my-fickle-spine. I just want to scroll through social media, watch Hamilton on Disney+, read a book for pleasure, play a game or message my friends. I know I have a deadline. I know it’s immovable. It is better that I take breaks, even unplanned, during my low motivation moments rather than arbitrarily having a planned night off that risks breaking a flow. Essentially, I don’t need a project manager; in this situation, you are my spouse and you are not responsible for my timesheet. Cheers.

***

I can guess that anyone reading this who knows me will automatically take my wife’s side… and fairly so. She is lovely and (usually) just trying to be sweet. This blog was more about explaining what goes on in my head when met with these comments, questions and actions. Also, we’ve hit 20 years of “how long will that take you?” It has been applied to my undergraduate degree, my PGCE, classroom planning and marking, coursework and controlled assessment marking, exam board marking (there’s been a lot of marking), DIY and decorating, MA assignments, and my MA dissertation. The answer is always the same and I’m surprised she hasn’t learned it yet.

It. Will. Take. However. Long. It. Takes.

Just a quickie

No – not that kind. No time for that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

This is a blog about not taking my own advice: prioritisation.

Mum messaged this week to ask how I am getting on. She knows well enough to check in but not expect much in return at this time of the year 😂 Thanks for your patience, Mum.

Usually, in the spring, I balance two jobs: teaching (past) / library assistant (present) + working for an exam board. Actually, in the past, this has been multiple exam boards at the same time. I’m not allowed to say which one, which exam or what role I have. Top secret stuff. Suffice to say, it’s a very busy, high-stakes role with lots of travel and overnight visits. Those who know me well understand that I thrive under pressure and love challenge. My internal wiring is clearly weird but it might be a McKenna trait. We’re all a bit now-now-now. My spring is always hectic but I always get it done.

Anyway, last year, I decided to throw caution to the wind and tried balancing three things: library assistant + secret exam board role + studying for my MA. At least the MA assignments were submitted pretty early and I was back to just two stressful and simultaneous activities. I managed it all in the McKenna manner.

This year? Well. Here’s something I said during one of the fantastic, monthly chats for new professionals, in the Twitterverse.

*Laugh hysterically and knowingly here* Obviously, this is a not-very-subtle example of foreshadowing so, as I’m sure you predicted, I did not heed my own counsel.

2019 spring = library assistant + new work Twitter account + secret exam role + straightforward MA module assignment + MA module that requires hundreds of separate tasks and a frightening level of introspection and self-reflection which I find uncomfortable + the small matter of my dissertation research involving 6 (wonderful) FE colleges + two conferences.*

So when Mum reached out across the universe to check I was still on the planet…

Will I get it all done? Not sure. I feel like I’m at that part in the movie when the soundtrack is super tense, getting louder and faster. There are a lot of drums. It’s underpinned by that opening wail from Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. I wish I could fast forward through a jolly montage, set to Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, featuring me working at superhuman speed, eating ice cream, in my PJs and donning a messy bun – popping out the other side brandishing my bound dissertation for submission.

Alas, this is pure fantasy; thus, I apologise in advance to my wife, nephew, Mum, family and friends for my absence / mood / stress / forgetfulness [please delete as appropriate].

* You’re probably wondering why I’m blogging about it all instead of just getting on with it. It’s cathartic to moan, alright?!