There is a difference between optimism and positivity, or at least the kind of positivity that tries to pretend that bad things never happen, or never happen to good people. I am an optimist. I read something recently that helped me clarify what that looks like for me. It’s a bit like “It’ll be okay […]
Read More »Learned in Yoga Class
How yoga influences how I work with clients. I don’t expect you to do yoga. You don’t even have to attempt the pose I’m going to talk about. Ever. In your whole life. The point of this series is that yoga has taught me some interesting things about how to approach other things.
Are meetings really a waste of time?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Are meetings really a waste of time? One of the core practices of my work with clients, and my engagement with academics on social media, is to remind you to notice what they’ve done. I wrote about this practice several years ago: You get a lot done. I send […]
Read More »Your home office setup during the pandemic
I start and finish A Meeting With Your Writing with some gentle stretching. During the current circumstances it has occurred to me that you might be more tense and also that your office space may not be set up as well as would be ideal. While academics like to think of their work as mental […]
Read More »Optimizing Focus: Meditation as practice & metaphor
Today’s article is the latest in a series on Optimizing Focus. Finding it hard to focus is normal. Self-flagellation does not work to improve your focus. Furthermore it takes time and energy that takes you away from your writing; it is another distraction. I firmly believe that you can approach your work compassionately rather than […]
Read More »How to use advice to develop your own practice
This post is part of an occasional series about how yoga influences how I work with clients. I don’t expect you to do yoga. Ever. In your whole life. The point of this series is that yoga has taught me some interesting things about how to approach other things. I have a daily yoga practice. […]
Read More »How much teaching preparation is enough?
Teaching is an important part of your job. You are committed to doing it well. At the same time, you often resent how much time it takes.You really wish you had more time for research than you do right now. Content expertise vs pedagogy The dominant mode of thinking about teaching in higher education is […]
Read More »Making writing challenges like #AcWriMo work for you
I am writing this part way through November 2017. A few years ago Charlotte Frost and her team at PhDtoPublished got the bright idea to make an academic version of #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and call it #AcWriMo. PhDtoPublished is geared to early career researchers and particularly those still in the late stages of […]
Read More »The 15-minute practice, 1 year later
I’ve been preaching the value of establishing a regular writing practice. If you are writing regularly, you will produce journal articles, books, and whatever else you need to produce. Establishing a regular practice is hard, but research shows that as little as 15 minutes per day can be effective. You can find 15 minutes. I’ve […]
Read More »Breathe
In the spirit of my Learned from Yoga posts, I want to draw your attention to a recent post by Aimée Morrison, Let it breathe. An excerpt gives you a flavour of the problem she addresses: When I began teaching, and for some time after, I used to try to assuage such anxieties by crowding […]
Read More »An advanced writing practice
A friend went to yoga class the other day and lay on her back the whole time absorbing the energy of the group and doing the poses in her head. She felt great afterwards. This is the advanced practice. You know your body well enough and you have enough self-confidence that you can just lie […]
Read More »The benefits of working small
In another post I asked “How could you experiment with working in a relaxed state?” I proposed that the ways in which my yoga teacher has been encouraging us to work within the comfortable range of movement and not stretch our muscles to their limits, might also apply to your writing and other work. In order to […]
Read More »Is working at or just beyond your limits really effective?
We live in a culture in which we are often demanded to do more. How much writing can you do in a year/semester/week/hour? How many students can you teach effectively? This constant striving for more leaves many of us feeling inadequate a lot of the time. It also privileges an approach to work that is […]
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