Happy New Year, Everyone!

Today is a great day to work on your writing project.  So many of us have big plans for the coming year, and its important to look for the tools and strategies that can help us stay on track.  We hope that FFPP’s academic community will be a resource for you as you build your career and set your writing goals.  Carrie Hintz former Mentor and Friend of FFPP offered some great advice “On Distraction and Tomatoes” about how to get a little bit of work done every day–even when teaching, committee work, and life make their demands on your time. You can also read it in last year’s “New Year, New Goals” post to our community of scholars.

FFPP Mentor Mark McBeth’s new book, Queer Literacies:  Discourses and Discontents was just published by Rowman & Littlefiled.   Congratulations to Mark!  He has some excellent advice about how he planned his work and worked his plan:

• Set a “Backwards Calendar” that sets a manuscript completion date as well as benchmark achievement of tasks that contribute to the final goal.  Some folks call it a “Reverse Calendar,” which you can read about here.
• Don’t beat yourself up when you miss a deadline.  Instead, reset it.
• Keep a journal that notes your accomplishments.  These notes can reassure you that you are indeed getting work done–and sometimes you need to pat yourself on the back.

Our Professional Development Day will take place on April 3.  We’ll have seminars and workshops on publishing books and articles, finding and writing grant and fellowships, on organizing your tenure and promotion files, on self-care and so much more.

Your Working Groups will meet from 10AM-1PM on these days–you can use your presentation dates as benchmark achievements toward your final goal:

February 7; February 21; March 6; March 20; April 24; May 8

 

Happy New Year, everyone!  Since January is a month when we can energize our commitment to our research and writing goals, its worthwhile to think about how we can chart a course toward success.

 

Former FFPP Mentor Carrie Hintz has offered some timeless advice in her post “On Distraction and Tomatoes,” that is worth revisiting.  She describes the Pomodoro Method that offers three important tips that can help you stay on track with your goals:

 

• Conceiving of your writing as taking place in small increments of time [25 minutes] rather than enormous, unbroken blocks of time–and progress is absolutely possible within those smaller blocks.
• Resisting distractions from those 25 minute blocks of time–especially the urge to check email or the news. Often this resistance to distraction takes place 15 or 20 minutes into the writing session, where I can tell myself “only 5 or 10 minutes to go,” so no interruptions allowed.
• Taking regular breaks, which clears the mind and feels healthier physically and mentally.

It seems so simple, right?  Achieving your goals requires that we establish a plan for our work despite all of the other demands of our personal and professional lives.  Here are a few more tips:

• Be realistic.  Set goals you can achieve.
• Make a plan that includes how you can be accountable for your goals–this might include scheduling an hour a day into your calendar, practicing positive self-talk, and trusting your working group peers for encouragement.
• Tell people about your goals so you can build a community of support.
• Make note of your small successes.  Every step counts toward your larger goal–be sure to acknowledge every little milestone of your journey.
• Take it one day at a time.  When you experience a setback don’t beat yourself up.  Get back to your plan and keep moving.

You are part of an amazing community of scholars.  You have already achieved so much–don’t forget you earned a tenure track job in an incredibly competitive market.  Yay you!  You have everything you need to achieve your goals, so go ahead and get to work.  You got this.