Writing Fever

Like many friends I know, I was under pressure to finish and mail out a dozen fellowship applications. I get quite anxious over these things. It just needed to be postmarked but on February 1st, I was feverishly typing/editing away the night before, left early for Kinko's to make copies the next day, drove to the Post Office and waited in line -- fortunately it wasn't that long -- and made a frantic drive to campus in time for class. I could've done it after class, but I don't like carrying around these applications which includes my letter, abstract, dissertation prospectus, and cv. That's a heavy load to be hauling. Not only that, I needed some peace of mind knowing that my applications are off and away.

I have one more application due next week and it looks as though that will be it for this round of fellowships. It's extremely competitive and I know I should cast a wider net, but I did limit myself to mostly east coast schools. I didn't want to be that far away from home.

I'm making slow progress on my chapter. Working, even as a part-timer, does take quite a lot of time from the day. It may not look much but there have been plenty of moments when I thought to myself, "Where did the day go?" And then you fall asleep. We don't notice the passage of time, nor do we remember what exactly took so much of it in the first place. In the end, you just know that you do not have time to write.

A friend actually monitored all the activities she did in the day. It's a diary of your time. She had a large pad of paper and recorded the activity she was doing and how long it took. So for example, a typical day's recording looks something like this:

• Cooked/ate breakfast - 30 min.
• Answered emails - 60 min.
• Surfed the internet - 45 min.
• Cooked/ate lunch - 60 min.
• Bank/paid bills - 45 min.
• Drove to campus - 35 min.
• Lectured -120 min.
• Office Hours - 120 min.
• Drove home - 45 min. (rush hour)
• Cooked/ate dinner - 45 min.
• Watched TV (an episode of "Heroes") - 60 min.
• Dissertation writing - 30 min.

(This is not me by the way. But it looks rather familiar to my daily routine ... Fine! It does look like my average day!) Anyways, the point of doing this is to look at all the time that is spent on non-dissertation related activities. There's some activities like driving that cannot be negotiated especially if it's rush hour traffic. But there are others that could be cut down and the idea is to redivert that time to dissertation writing. I find it really useful and revealing to see how my day goes. You keep a daily log and review it to make sure you're keeping yourself accountable. In the end it's still about making time to write that gets the dissertation done.