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Last week someone asked me what I do when I’m not feeling productive. I realised I have a few different strategies I use, and that they vary depending on why I’m not productive.
First, there’s the detailed but boring work. For example, a lot of my data collection involves close description and observation of product websites and documents. I can really only do this for about an hour at a time, because I get bored. So when I feel I’m starting to slow down, I do two things. First, I free write about what I’ve been observing for about 5-10 minutes. This is useful because it’s how I start to move beyond description to analysis. Sometimes I use an exercise called ’Notice and focus’ from Writing Analytically (8th edition). This involves listing what I noticed, then identifying the 3 details I found most interesting/strange/revealing, and then writing why I think those 3 things are the most interesting. Then, I go for a walk, which helps me think more deeply about my observations.
Then, there’s the difficult work. For me, this is when I’m trying to write an analytical section or explain my argument. While I find generating the arguments invigorating, because I like having ideas and synthesising information, I find writing in a coherent linear narrative difficult. When I first started my PhD, I thought that because I found this meant I wasn’t cut out to be a researcher. Over time, I’ve learnt that I can do it, it just requires perseverance. But preserving is hard and it’s easy for me to feel ‘unproductive’ as I stare at the blank screen. When this happens, there are two things I try. The first is to set a short timer (say 10 minutes) and force myself to stick with it. Then, if I’m still stuck, I change activities. I often go for a walk or read some unrelated literature, but more recently I’ve started switching to writing other chapters. Because I’ve been thinking about my thesis for a few years now this strategy has worked the few times I’ve tried it, but I’m not sure it would have worked so well at the start of my PhD.
There’s also the times when I have a lot of different things I need to get done. I might be feeling productive in one task, but overall I’m aware that I’m falling behind on all the other things. A strategy I’ve found useful in this situation is to write a list of everything I can think I need to do (best to write this from scratch rather than get overwhelmed with existing lists, which are usually filled with a mix of must-do and maybe-do tasks). Then I just pick one task and work at that until I feel I’m slowing down. As soon as that happens, I stop that task, even if it’s only been 5 minutes, and switch to another tasks. Repeat. I find this works best if I don’t list more than about 10 tasks, and I redo the task list each day, because this means that the tasks are things I actually need to do, or are things that I’m getting worried about.
Finally, there’s the times when it doesn’t matter what the work is or how I approach it, I just can’t do anything. This usually means I’m tired and so I just take a break or get some sleep.
