Karen Quinn Fung

Started writing in a gratitude journal. I make sure to keep it close at hand and to note the moments I notice things. Next: remembering to reach for it when I’m feeling bad.

Been reading a fantastic book recommended to me by a friend called “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock (http://www.your-brain-at-work.com/). There’s a section of the book that talks about emotions, the limbic system and the idea of “towards” and “away” (fight or flight, basically). I’m realizing that the habits I don’t like tend to have to me going into “away” modes and going “towards” things that are not aligned with my actual goals.

So right now I’m just in observing: what makes me feel good and moving towards things? what makes me feel bad and moves me away from them? How can I take what I learn from each of these situations and, you know, switch ‘em around so that I move away from the things that are counterproductive and towards the things that I want to do?

This thesis is the largest thing I’ve ever worked on where I am the primary driving force. For a really, really long time, I seemed to be my own biggest obstacle to getting anything done. In the past month or so I’ve been able to eke out some progress, which means I’m now going to take the time to jot down what little I know about what’s worked, how I learned it, and how different it turned out when I did it compared to when I was reading about others doing it.

Outline, outline, outline. When I was in undergrad, I could write without outlines. Now I can’t even bust out a single sentence that I can feel good about without a fully-formed, fairly intricate outline of claims, evidence, warrants and qualifiers. Even though I know this, what is hardest for me to bring myself to acknowledge is that the outline is incomplete; so I start trying to write before I’ve thought it all through, and inevitably I have to throw out everything I’ve written. Now that the outline is getting to the place where the pieces fit together, have some coherence, and make a point, I don’t feel like throwing everything out.

I knew this before, with other papers I’d worked on, but still had to be reminded of it. I’m using OmniOutliner to help me with this; previously, even outline mode in Microsoft Word had been really helpful and I might return to that.

Trust myself. Be myself. The first 6 months of the project, I remain stubbornly convinced that I could write a thesis without bringing in what I actually thought about the whole thing. That might work for projects that are much more structured, or the answers much more obvious; but for my particular research area, which is somewhat exploratory, somewhat qualitative, and very contextual, trusting myself and being myself meant understanding that my instincts and interests are a huge part of the analysis. I wouldn’t have a topic if it weren’t for the fact that I see something there, and the nature of the phenomenon I observe is that I am in the position to see things that a lot of others don’t. Even if I don’t bring myself into the research formally, trusting myself was (and remains) my biggest challenge to ensure that I actually say something and use what I read to bolster that, instead of simply summarizing literature without clear direction.

Next thing I want to get better on: understanding how to deal with self-imposed deadlines, because I am missing them all over the place.

Other things that have seemed to help, but the jury is still out on: distraction-free writing tools (because I switch back to looking at my outline anyway); pomodoro technique (still a huge fan in theory, my own practice has been shaky); and knowing when I need (then feeling OK about asking for) help.